Huawei's long-rumored Android alternative, Hongmeng, is finally official. At today's Huawei Developer Conference, the company's Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu surprised the audience by unveiling "HarmonyOS," which he says is faster and safer than Android. That said, the software is primarily aimed at IoT products (such as smart displays, wearables, smart speakers and in-car devices) instead of smartphones, Yu stated that when Huawei can no longer access Google's Android ecosystem, it can deploy HarmonyOS "at any time." Until then, Huawei will continue to support Android.
Yu's own presentation was rather technical, but in a nutshell, HarmonyOS is positioned as a future-proof, "microkernel-based, distributed OS for all scenarios." The platform is open source, and it's actually more of a competitor to Google's upcoming Fuchsia, given that both are microkernel-based and can be used on multiple types of devices at once. In contrast, his on-stage presentation said Android isn't as efficient due to its redundant codes, outdated scheduling mechanism and general fragmentation issues. Shots fired.