What Is Harmony OS? Huawei’s New Operating System Explained

Just after decades of speculation and rumor, Chinese tech big Huawei formally unveiled its Harmony OS functioning procedure in 2019. It’s good to say that more queries have been elevated than answered. How does it function? What troubles does it resolve? And is it a merchandise of the latest feud involving Huawei and the U.S. govt?

Is Harmony OS Based mostly on Linux?

No. Though both of those are no cost software products and solutions (or, much more precisely, Huawei has pledged to launch Harmony OS with an open up-resource license), Harmony OS is its personal unique product.  Moreover, it employs a distinct design architecture to Linux, preferring a microkernel style over monolithic kernel.

But wait. Microkernel? Monolithic kernel? I have shed you.

Let’s try out once more. At the coronary heart of every single running technique is a thing termed a kernel. Like the name indicates, kernels are at the coronary heart of each operating program, effectively serving as a basis. They take care of interactions with the underlying components, allocate means, and determine how plans are executed and operated.

All kernels have these fundamental responsibilities. Even so, they differ in how they do the job.

Let us speak about memory. Modern functioning methods test to segregate user apps (like Steam or Google Chrome) from the additional sensitive elements of the functioning process. Envision an impenetrable line dividing the memory employed by process-amount products and services from your apps. There are two major superior reasons for this: security and security.

Microkernels, like the 1 utilised by Harmony OS, are exceptionally discerning about what runs in kernel manner, successfully limiting it to the principles.

Bluntly, monolithic kernels are not discerning. Linux, for example, enables numerous OS-stage utilities and processes to run inside this privileged place in memory.

At the time Linus Torvalds began perform on the Linux kernel, microkernels were however anything of an not known quantity, with few authentic-earth industrial employs. Microkernels also proved more durable to produce, and tended to be slower.

Virtually 30 yrs afterwards, factors have modified. Computer systems are more quickly and less costly. Microkernels have made the leap from academia into manufacturing.

The XNU kernel, which sits at the coronary heart of macOS and iOS, lends substantially inspiration from before microkernel styles, specifically the Mach kernel developed by Carnegie Mellon University. Meanwhile QNX, which sorts the basis of the Blackberry 10 operating system, as properly as numerous vehicular infotainment units, uses a microkernel style and design.

It is All About the Extensibility, Man

For the reason that Microkernel patterns are intentionally limited, they’re easy to increase. Introducing a new system services, like a product driver, doesn’t call for the developer to essentially change or interfere with the kernel.

And that hints towards why Huawei selected this method with Harmony OS. Though Huawei is potentially ideal known for its telephones, it’s a organization involved in most sectors of the purchaser technologies market place. Its lineup contains factors like conditioning wearables, routers, and even televisions.

And Huawei is an exceptionally ambitious company. Having a leaf from rival Xiaomi’s ebook, the firm has started out advertising IoT products by its youth-concentrated subsidiary Honor, which includes smart toothbrushes and wise desk lamps.

And although it is not clear no matter whether Harmony OS will run on every bit of purchaser technologies it in the end sells, Huawei aspires to have an operating process that will operate on as numerous products as possible.

Part of the purpose is compatibility. If you disregard components specifications, any software prepared for Harmony OS must perform on any machine running it. That’s an desirable proposition for builders. But it should also have rewards for customers, way too. As more and much more gadgets develop into computerized, it helps make perception for them to be able to very easily perform as section of a broader ecosystem.

But What About Telephones?

It’s just about one particular 12 months because the Trump administration’s Treasury Office positioned Huawei on an “entity list,” therefore blocking American companies from trading with the company. While this has exerted force on all stages of Huawei’s company, the greatest ache has been felt in the company’s cellular division, stopping it from releasing new gadgets with Google Mobile Providers (GMS) incorporated.

Google Mobile Companies is effectively the whole Google ecosystem for Android, which include mundane applications like Google Maps and Gmail, as very well as the Google Engage in Retailer. With Huawei’s hottest phones lacking accessibility to most apps, numerous have questioned whether or not the Chinese huge will abandon Android, instead shifting to a homegrown functioning program.

This looks not likely. At minimum, in the short expression.

For starters, Huawei’s leadership has reiterated its motivation to the Android system. Rather, it’s concentrated on establishing its personal different to GMS identified as Huawei Cell Expert services (HMS).

At the heart of this is the company’s app ecosystem, the Huawei AppGallery. Huawei states it’s shelling out $1 billion to shut the “app gap” with the Google Enjoy Retail outlet and has 3,000 computer software engineers operating on it.

A new cellular operating technique would be forced to commence from scratch. Huawei would have to entice builders to port or redevelop their applications for Harmony OS. And, as we’ve learned from Windows Cell, BlackBerry 10, and Samsung’s Tizen (and earlier Bada), that is not an simple proposition.

That stated, Huawei is a single of the most properly-resourced tech firms in the earth. And consequently, it would be unwise to absolutely dismiss the prospect of a Harmony OS-run cell phone.

Built in China 2025

There is an attention-grabbing political angle to talk about in this article. For a long time, China has acted as the world’s manufacturing unit, constructing merchandise intended abroad. But in the latest several years, China’s federal government and its possess personal sector has invested heavily in analysis and enhancement. Increasingly, Chinese-made items are producing their way onto the global stage, offering new competition for Silicon Valley’s tech elite.

Amidst this, the Beijing governing administration has an ambition it phone calls “Made in China 2025.” Successfully, it would like to finish its reliance on imported superior-tech products and solutions, these kinds of as semiconductors and airplanes, replacing them with their very own homegrown choices. The drive from this stems from financial and political stability, as effectively as countrywide status.

Harmony OS fits into this ambition completely. If it usually takes off, it’ll be the 1st globally productive running process to arise from China—with the exception of individuals utilized in market marketplaces, like mobile base stations. These homegrown credentials will come in notably handy really should the cold war concerning China and the United States keep on to rage.

And as a outcome, I would not be amazed for Harmony OS to have some quite enthusiastic supporters in the central government, as nicely as inside the wider Chinese personal sector. And it is these supporters who will finally establish its achievement.