HarmonyOS is Huawei’s alternative operating system that was created after the company was banned in the United States and lost its Android license. The reality is that the operating system is less of a new alternative and more of a fork of Android 10, according to a new report by Ron Amadeo in Ars Technica.
HarmonyOS was initially presented as an operating system totally different from Android and iOS, something that would feel as much at home in smart home appliances (like the company’s Honor Vision TV) as in smartphones. The announcement was a promising promise that losing access to U.S. companies would not prevent Huawei from innovating, but Amadeo’s beta experience highlights some disappointing findings:
- Gaining access to the developer requires a two-day background check, which includes sending copies of your passport, personal identity and credit card to Huawei
- In fact, you do not run the beta operating system on your emulator; is transmitted to you, in the Google Stadia style, from (presumably) a phone running the beta in China
- Most importantly, HarmonyOS appears to be a fork of Android 10 with the word “Android” located and replaced with “Harmony”
HarmonyOS will likely always be more popular in China, but the fact that the new operating system appears to be a continuation of Huawei’s EMUI skin with potentially slower access to Android updates via the open source Android Project is a major blow to it be used anywhere else. It may be good enough not to offend the US government and satisfy the Chinese authorities, but quick text editing and an invasive application process are not an appetizing operating system.
Read all of Amadeo’s deep dive into detective work by dissecting the beta, along with some suggestions in Huawei’s cute developer documentation for a hypothetical “super virtual device” Ars Technica.