Huawei's HarmonyOS Arrives With iPad-Inspired Tablet UI, Apparent Android Base

Two years into its ban from the US Government and, in turn, access to the Play Store on its Android-powered devices, Huawei is unveiling HarmonyOS. The platform is an alternative to Android that powers TVs, smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches. 9to5Google reports: Announced at an event today, Huawei is positioning HarmonyOS as an operating system that can handle just about everything, from the smartphone in your pocket to IoT devices such as "power sockets and lamps." The company says the goal of the platform is to have one set of code that can be used across virtually any device, saying that it is not aware of "any other operating system in the world" that can cover such a wide range of devices. Leaning into this ability, Huawei developed a "Control Panel," which gives users the ability to connect multiple devices together, with the example of using the "music widget" to throw audio playback to nearby speakers or TVs. A "Super Device" widget shows icons for other nearby devices and enables a quick and easy pairing mode.

On smartphones, the HarmonyOS homescreen can use a swipe-up gesture on apps developed for the platform to see a widget pulling information from that app. Those widgets, apparently, can also be used across devices because of the shared codebase Huawei says HarmonyOS offers. The homescreen can also intelligently add apps to a folder based on the category. Interestingly, Huawei says HarmonyOS devices will also be able to move running apps from one device to another, which is really neat and unique. Moving apps between devices apparently also works between watches and TVs, with a workout app being used on both simultaneously given as an example. A video calling app was also shown moving between devices. Huawei says that performance of HarmonyOS is "superior" to Android with EMUI, specifically calling out long-term use.

While there are certainly new elements in HarmonyOS, it appears to be a "fork" of Android. The Verge spent time with the HarmonyOS-powered MatePad Pro and described the act of installing Android APKs as "though I was using an Android device." Visually, there are also a tremendous number of similarities between HarmonyOS and Android, though there are some distinct elements of Apple's iPad OS in the platform's tablet-optimized homescreen, seen below as Evan Blass posted to Twitter. Android Authority further described HarmonyOS as "ultimately a spin on Android 10" with a "slight rebrand." TechRadar said the software was "clearly" based on Android. These findings from the media appear to back up a previous report from ArsTechnica, which showed the developer preview as basically a clone of EMUI-skinned Android.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, when IP isn't an issue, might as well go with both iOS and Android. A lot of those icons reminded me of Apple's stuff, and I would not be surprised if the OS was built on AOSP.

Ripping off Apple's IP wasn't an issue for Google when they redesigned Android, why would IP be an issue for Huawei?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

isn't it always the way ;)

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Apple licensed Smalltalk from Xerox, then they copied the GUI aspects of the "Star" project at PARC (there was no license agreement related to that), copyrighted them and started suing companies like HP for infringing on those copyrights.

During Apple's suing of HP, Xerox sued Apple over this because of course Apple hadn't licensed that IP. It was a bit bizarre for Apple to be suing HP for doing essentially what Apple did to Xerox. The result of the Apple V HP lawsuit was that "Apple cannot get patent

Re:

[ChunderDownunder]

Huawei marketing initially said it'd be a clean break from Google and Linux to develop their own microkernel-based OS. (and using the own microkernel would mean they didn't need to GPL2 anything)

But, yes, it seems just another AOSP fork, replacing proprietary Google bits with Huawei bits. (c.f. Fire OS, /e/).

Re:

[Tough Love]

uses a Linux kernel if a device has a large amount of RAM. [wikipedia.org]

Since every phone has "a large amount of RAM", it seems to me that Huawei's clean break claim is mere theater.

Re:

[Darkling-MHCN]

Troll alert !

Re: Huawei unseats Microsoft!

[EirikFinlay]

And who cares?
As i said before, if i have to choose who should be allowed to spy on me between America or China, i would choose China.
Why? Because China has little to no influence in my life and in my country, while America has proven to deeply interfere in other countries businesses influencing laws, and even going as far as using other countries like sockpuppets to interfere in other people's lives and businesses.

Think at Assange for instance, do you think he is still under illegal, inhumane and unreasona

Re:

[JackieBrown]

I used to feel that way too. I had switched to using yandex for email instead of gmail.

That said, who knows what country/corp will be running our lives in 20 years

App store

[fermion]

But will it run Fortnite, and how many app stores will it have this seems to be all anyone cares about. That and the DRM for movies.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

It has their own app store which apparently has a decent selection of popular apps on it. Fortnite can be side-loaded too.

The other issue is the Android security system. Apps can verify that a device is """secure""", which generally means signed OS and secure boot environment, not rooted. Some banking apps use it, for example. No idea if Huawei have their own version, presumably they do.

Not exactly a Steve Jobs big reveal...

[Darkling-MHCN]

But pretty slick none the less..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

I definitely wouldn't dismiss these guys.... iOS and Android may get caught napping, just like Microsoft did 15 years ago with their Windows Mobile OS. Every 10-20 years or so you need to build an OS from the ground up with all the latest innovations that have been made in in mind. The dead weight of the past can catch you out, a new player with a lot a huge R&D budget can catch the rest of the market out.

Re:

[HiThere]

The thing is, this doesn't appear to be a new "OS from the ground up". This appears to be an android fork. So your argument needs to be strongly tempered with skepticism.

The last new "OS from the ground up" that I heard of was the GNU Hurd. It hasn't been a wild success. (I think there have been a few others, which also haven't had huge penetration into the market.)

"From the ground up" doesn't often work that well, particularly when you're trying to replace something extremely complex that has a lot of

Will any technologist use this?

[SuperKendall]

Android alone is iffy in regards to security and user data collection, though that mostly can be mitigated by the user.

But you can be 100% sure a device from Huawei is going to be sending a LOT of data about you off to China. For sure anything you've ever browsed. Maybe contents of any apps installed on device. Less likely, though not impossible , is a built in keylogger. Maybe an always-on microphone. None of it possible to disable, most of the sneakier features in hardware that the OS can't really se

Re: Will any technologist use this?

[dwater]

Rather China than the USA, frankly. What will China do?

Why?

[SuperKendall]

Rather China than the USA, frankly.

Ok, let's pretend the mostly incompetent CIA was anywhere near as capable as China.

So then, given that why would you prefer China knew everything about you, rather than the U.S. government?

The U.S. government just stores that info away until they need something from you.

But everything China knows about you and files away gets baked into your social credit score (what, you didn't think China would create social credit scores for every person on the planet?) and as a result

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[betsuin]

> China would have to be awfully incompetent to personally go after me in my life.

This is an oxymoron.

Re:

[Rhipf]

I'm not sure oxymoron is the word you want to use here. I don't see any self contradictory statements in the OP's post.
You may have been better off saying that the statement was redundant.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[JackieBrown]

Blackmail? Identity theft?

The US is going down a dark path, to be sure, but China is not the good guy or the preferred actor in any scenario.

Re: Will any technologist use this?

[EirikFinlay]

Again, who cares if China has my dick pics, who cares if they know i despise them, they have literally no importance nor influence in my life and my government.

I cannot say the same for the USA, or even for Google... they have far more influence in my life than what China can hope to have in my whole lifetime.

So it's AOSP without the extra Google spyware

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

This would sounds like the ideal version of Android, were it not for the extra Chinese spyware tacked on.

Of course it is Android, what do you expect?

[Wolfier]

that Huawei is able to create an OS from scratch with Android compatibility, all within 2 years?

The moment they announced HarmonyOS for the first time, I knew it would just be an Android fork.

Huawei: Make China Great Again and Again !

[HaAh]

Huawei: Make China Great Again and Again !

Moving running apps across devices is a hack risk

[rapjr]

Look up "Mobile Agent" research on Google Scholar. There are some severe security problems with moving running apps between devices. Foremost is the problem of a compromised host that corrupts the apps and then sends them on their way to attack other devices. It is very difficult to protect your app against a corrupt host operating system. There may be some known solutions to the security problems with mobile agents, but I suspect Huawei spent most of the last two years working on other things instead o

Does it reflect sadly on my character that...

[mark-t]

... when I first glanced at the headline, I thought it was some story about HarmonyAI?

Privacy Comparison

[BardBollocks]

I'd be interested to know the scale of data collection.

I sure miss my privacy and it's not like we have good privacy options in the tablet world.

'power sockets and lamps'

[Fly Swatter]

This is revolutionary. /s

Possibilities

[Jzanu]

How much does Google charge manufacturers (and through them the consumers) for its additions? In purely economics terms this new package will rule in every country where it is cheaper than the other imports. This could create an alternative and competitive technology ecosystem, but that basically exists with the language differences that separate people into camps that can't actually communicate anyway.