In the city of Dongguan, China, Huawei finally took the wraps off its long-rumored, first-party operating system. The OS, called Harmony OS, has been in development for several years, but it’s recently taken on a role as a key player in Huawei’s contingency plan since the U.S. enacted a trade ban on the Chinese technology company. At the Huawei Developer Conference, Huawei finally shared the first details about its in-house OS, but the company wasn’t ready to show off Harmony on smartphones just yet. Tomorrow, the company will show off Harmony OS on the Honor Vision TV. For now, Android remains the go-to mobile OS for Huawei and Honor smartphones and tablets.
Harmony OS is microkernel-based, like Google’s in-development Fuchsia OS. Huawei says this allows for flexible deployment on various devices, improving security in all scenarios. Developers will be able to use Huawei’s ARK Compiler to compile code from multiple languages like C/C++, Java, and Kotlin for Harmony OS. Huawei will be providing an SDK to support app development across multiple device types, including televisions, car kits, smartphones, smartwatches, and more. Harmony OS will not allow for root access, which Huawei says is a security risk on Android and other Linux-based operating systems. Huawei boasts an EAL 5+ certification level. Finally, Huawei will be open-sourcing Harmony OS in the future.
Work on the new OS began 2 years ago with version 1.0 of the microkernel. In 2019, their work can now be applied to more devices. Huawei says version 2.0 of its microkernel will be released next year while version 3.0 arrives in 2021. Huawei says they can switch to Harmony OS right now because the migration is not very difficult due to the nature of the microkernel. However, the company is choosing to stick with Android on smartphones right now over consideration of its partners. Huawei says that its new OS represents an entirely new generation of operating systems as it enables AI capability in different scenarios from PCs, tablets, and other domains.
We’ll learn more about Huawei’s new operating system this week at Huawei’s Developer Conference.
This is a developing story. Check back for more details as we get them.
The post Huawei officially reveals Harmony OS, its first party operating system appeared first on xda-developers.
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