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Huawei's HarmonyOS Arrives With iPad-Inspired Tablet UI, Apparent Android Base (9to5google.com) 39

Posted by BeauHD from the this-looks-familiar dept.
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.
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Huawei's HarmonyOS Arrives With iPad-Inspired Tablet UI, Apparent Android Base More

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

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  • App store (Score:3)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @07:40PM (#61448898) Homepage Journal
    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: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      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.

  • 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: (Score:3)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      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

  • 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

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

      • 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

      • 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.

    • 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 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @10:01PM (#61449182)

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

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

  • 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.

  • This is revolutionary. /s
  • 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.

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