It is called “Harmony” BONE. On the occasion of its annual conference dedicated to developers, the chinese giant of mobile telephony has presented its own operating system. Its development has been accelerated by the ban of the administration Trump, fell last may, which resulted in the end announced commercial relationships with Google Huawei. After mid-August, the chinese company may not be authorized to use Android, the operating system that equips all smartphones on the chinese giant. In the framework of the trade war between China, the United States, Huawei can no longer buy components and equipment to u.s. suppliers. Harmony BONE is therefore presented as an alternative to Android. The reality is more nuanced than that.
“Harmony” BONE, what is it?
Harmony is the operating system of Huawei, which is under development for the past two years. At the conference of 9 August, Richard Yu, CEO of the firm, explained that the software will work on connected objects (watches smart, connected speakers, intelligent displays). Furthermore, the first product with the Harmony screen is the “Honor Smart Screen”, details of which will be given on the 10th of August. The flexibility of the software will enable users to make call to a single account for all devices. Harmony is also “open source”, which means that it can be downloaded for free and freely by any company.
With Harmony OS, Huawei can happen to the Google Android?
No. Indeed, as noted by the specialized site Engadget , Harmony is more akin to Fuchsia, another Google operating system, also open-source and that can also be deployed on a variety of media. Richard Yu has repeated that”Huawei wants to use Android as a priority” but that the firm will be able to deploy Harmony “at any time”. But during the presentation of the operating system, the man has not referred to its own smartphones and those of its subsidiary, Honor.
By pressing the fact that he can unsheathe at any time, the CEO address a blink of eye relief enjoyed his company for ten days. On 19 August, the Us sanctions will bring upon Huawei after 90 days of gel. However, it is still possible that Google has – as it claims since may – a license to extend this period of probation.
What about applications?
Even if Huawei manages to pass the Android operating system, the question arises as to the ecosystem of apps in the store Google Play. That would be an OS that can’t run the applications most requested by consumers? Without more details, Richard Yu said that Harmony will run Android apps and Linux. But has not referred to specific programs.
What are the innovations of Harmony?
Richard Yu has not stopped repeating: “Harmony is faster and more secure than Android”. Roughly, Huawei has compacted lines of code and reduces it layers to allow applications to be more responsive. The real innovation for developers: with Harmony assistant, an application developed to be automatically adapted to each medium (smartphone, tv, etc). Generally, it is necessary to create iterations of the same application for each device. These versions generated can be customized by the developers.
