Huawei is definitely turning the Android page with HarmonyOS, its new operating system

Android and iOS have a new competitor: HarmonyOS. Announced to developers in August 2019, Huawei's new operating system is finally arriving on the first devices. A priori derived from the open-source version of Android (Huawei never said so explicitly but everything suggests that it is a simple fork, at least initially), HarmonyOS aims to work on all devices, regardless of format. Smartphone, tablet, television, watch, toaster, coffee machine... Huawei wants to run its OS everywhere and become essential in our connected world.

While waiting to be able to offer you a first grip, here is a first presentation of HarmonyOS and its specificities.

Android boosted to iOS

First thing, what does HarmonyOS look like? You are not likely to be destabilized if you are or have been a user of EMUI, Huawei's Android overlay. HarmonyOS being a priori a simple copy and paste of the Google system, everything is almost identical between the two systems. Android applications will also work on HarmonyOS even if, quite logically, HarmonyOS cannot run Google services.

To distinguish itself from Android, Huawei has nevertheless made some changes. First of all, applications developed with the HarmonyOS SDK can use widgets similar to those of iOS. Simply swipe up from an app icon to access the widget, which can then be pinned to the home screen (a widget can also be displayed on a watch or TV). Another difference, HarmonyOS introduces a real control center, again copy and paste from that of the iPhone. It allows you to control your music, change the Wi-Fi network, adjust the brightness of your screen, manage your connected home, send sound from your smartphone to another device... HarmonyOS tries to break the border between Android and iOS, even if it means sometimes going too far (Huawei has for example copied the AirPlay button, a technology belonging to Apple).

Huawei - HarmonyOS interface, half Android, half iOS.

The ecosystem, the dubious promise of HarmonyOS

Here, we must confess to being extremely skeptical. All of Huawei's communication since the initial announcement of HarmonyOS has been to claim that its operating system is the first of its kind. Supposedly multi-platform, HarmonyOS would be able to adapt to all screens and, above all, to communicate a lot of devices with each other transparently.

The problem is that none of the examples shown by Huawei convinces us for now. The Chinese brand explains for example that you can transfer the screen of your smartphone to your tablet, which was already possible with Android. She also claims that Harmony allows you to stream music from your mobile to a speaker, as if Bluetooth or Wi-Fi hadn't existed for years. Another strange example, Huawei boasts the ability of HarmonyOS to exchange files with a PC... which however runs under Windows, and not HarmonyOS. This very confusing communication lets us think that the universal side of HarmonyOS is only marketing. Just look at what Apple does with its different operating systems to understand that interoperability does not depend on a single OS but on good communication between devices. By wanting to believe that it is revolutionizing the world of new technologies (Huawei speaks of a merger of its devices to create a “super device”), the Chinese manufacturer gives us the impression of inventing differences with Android.

The only convincing example that was shown to us was the possibility of pairing HarmonyOS devices with each other using an NFC tag. For example, we approach our smartphone to an oven and we can control it, provided that the latter runs under Huawei's operating system of course. The promise is nice because it does not require installing an additional application on your smartphone. Still, apart from that, nothing in HarmonyOS suggests that Huawei has just created the ultimate operating system.

Huawei - By bringing a HarmonyOS device close to another HarmonyOS device, we can make them communicate.

Other good ideas from Huawei include the ability to transfer an application from your smartphone to your tablet from the multitasking view.

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Huawei will update a lot of devices

While waiting to be able to tell you more about HarmonyOS, let's talk about its availability. From today in China, the operating system will arrive on a first list of devices (including the Mate 40 and P40). Throughout 2021, Huawei plans to update dozens of devices currently running Android. Finally, and this is a great surprise, very old mobiles (some 4-5 years old) will receive HarmonyOS in 2022 when they were no longer eligible for the latest Android updates. Huawei's strategy seems clear: create a huge fleet as quickly as possible.

As far as Europe is concerned, we know absolutely nothing at the time of writing these lines. If an update of devices without Google services seems obvious to us, what about the others who would then be deprived of American applications? The brand will no doubt communicate on its intentions in the coming days. At first, HarmonyOS seems mainly built to offer software independence to Huawei. It will probably take several years for the Chinese brand to see if its bet is successful. Will all Chinese devices one day run HarmonyOS? Will the operating system manage to become something other than a copy and paste of Android?