To part ways with Android, Huawei's native HarmonyOS faces two tough battles

The HarmonyOS operating system, which has been unveiled to the public for more than four years, is gradually moving away from Android.

On January 18, Yu Chengdong, Executive Director of Huawei, CEO of Device BG, and Chairman of Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, announced that Huawei's self-developed HarmonyOS NEXT is open to developers, and is expected to release a developer beta version in the second quarter of this year and a consumer-oriented commercial version in the fourth quarter.

The most interesting thing about this operating system is that it will no longer be compatible with Android. Yu Chengdong also said in a letter to all employees released on January 2, 2024: "2024 is a critical year for native HarmonyOS, we must accelerate the development of various HarmonyOS native applications, and focus on winning the two most difficult battles of the technical base and the tripartite ecosystem." ”

No longer compatible with Android

HarmonyOS NEXT was first mentioned at the Huawei Developer Conference in August last year. At that time, Huawei announced the HarmonyOS NEXT Developer Preview Program, which will be available to enterprise developers from now on, and to all developers in the first quarter of 2024.

According to Yu Chengdong, the kernel of HarmonyOS NEXT is the HarmonyOS kernel and does not rely on Linux or Unix kernels. He also said on the same day that for a long time, the software and technology development of operating systems such as Linux kernel and programming language have been led by foreign companies, and the era of the Internet of Everything has given Huawei a very good opportunity to develop its own operating system. AI frameworks and large models, etc., have taken root downwards and formed a complete set of core technologies of their own, laying a solid foundation for ecological construction. ”

In addition, he also mentioned that most of the operating systems launched by other companies are replaced with new UI (user interface) on the Android operating system, which is equivalent to a new layer of skin, and is not a real operating system.

Zhou Hongyi, the founder of 360, who came to the platform that day, also said that many operating systems around the world are basically Unix and Linux. If Huawei can really build a completely autonomous kernel without relying on Linux, it will definitely be a feat in the history of the operating system.

According to the "China Times" reporter, after the Android operating system from Google was "cut off", Huawei officially launched the HarmonyOS system at the developer conference held in August 2019 as a "spare tire", and a year later, the HarmonyOS system was upgraded to HarmonyOS 2 version, and in July 2022, HarmonyOS 3 was released, Huawei announced at that time that it was equipped with more than 300 million devices equipped with HarmonyOS operating system, and Huawei released HarmonyOS in July last year 4. The number of ecological devices disclosed at that time had exceeded 700 million. However, it should be mentioned that until HarmonyOS 4, the HarmonyOS is still compatible with Android applications.

Zhang Xiaorong, president of the Deepin Technology Research Institute, said in an interview with the China Times that Huawei Hongmeng Galaxy Edition has achieved separation from Android by abandoning the traditional Linux kernel and AOSP Android open source, and he believes that the design of the system adopts a microkernel architecture to make the Hongmeng system more flexible, better security and fluency.

Ma Chao, a Huawei Cloud developer expert, also told the China Times reporter that the HarmonyOS Galaxy version and the Android system do have different underlying architecture and technical implementations, and are two independent operating systems, similar to the relationship between Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, he also believes that the HarmonyOS system has a high degree of autonomy and control, and it is not a complete abandonment of Linux, and it is expected that some components and services of HarmonyOS may still use open-source Linux technology and components.

More than 800 million ecological equipment

Huawei chose to launch the Harmony Galaxy version at this time, meaning to part ways with Android, in addition to technology, the ecology behind it is undoubtedly an important support.

From Huawei's own point of view, represented by the Mate 60 series of mobile phones released at the end of August last year, its once huge mobile phone terminals are showing a recovery momentum. Counterpoint's statistics on China's mobile phone market in Q3 last year show that Huawei mobile phones ranked sixth with a share of 12.9%, only 1.1 percentage points behind fifth place Xiaomi. It should be mentioned that Huawei's mobile phone shipments in the current period increased by 37% year-on-year, the fastest growth rate among the top six manufacturers.

On January 15, Huawei's HarmonyOS developer community officially announced that the HarmonyOS NEXT developer preview beta is open for recruitment, and the first three models to be supported are Huawei Mate 60, Mate 60 Pro, and Mate X5.

Data from Counterpoint also shows that as of the third quarter of last year, HarmonyOS has reached 13% of the market share of China's smartphone operating system, the third largest mobile operating system after Android and iOS, and its share of the global market has also reached 3%. As a reference, Huawei has given the expected goal that for the underlying platform such as the operating system, a market share of 16% is a life and death line.

On the other hand, in addition to Huawei's own terminal equipment, the market share of the HarmonyOS system has also reached a certain scale. On January 18, Huawei disclosed that it has more than 800 million devices in its ecosystem, and the number of HarmonyOS native application ecosystem partners has exceeded 200.

According to the reporter's understanding, in October last year, Tencent announced that WeChat would be adapted to the Hongmeng system in a native way, in addition, the first batch of companies to develop Hongmeng native applications also include Alipay, Meituan, Jingdong, AutoNavi, Xiaohongshu, WPS and other high-frequency use of APP. The reporter also saw that Internet manufacturers such as Meituan, Dewu, Baidu, and ByteDance have successively released positions such as Hongmeng native application development engineers.

Zhang Xiaorong believes in the exchange with reporters,From the perspective of the developer's switching cost and market acceptance,Incompatible Android does not have much impact on the ecology of Hongmeng,In fact, Huawei users have become accustomed to the Hongmeng system,At present, many Internet companies have begun to recruit Hongmeng developers,This also reflects the market's recognition of Hongmeng is improving。

Ma Chao believes that the impact of incompatible Android on the HarmonyOS ecosystem is two-sided, on the one hand, because it cannot directly run Android applications, it may face the problem of relative lack of application ecology in the short term, and on the other hand, it also encourages developers to innovate and optimize applications for HarmonyOS, which is conducive to building a unique HarmonyOS ecosystem.

Editor-in-charge: Huang Xingli Editor-in-chief: Han Feng