HarmonyOS
HarmonyOS (HongMeng OS): Everything you need to know
By
Deng Li
Posted on June 12, 2021
Comments
On May 20, 2019, we were the
first to report about Huawei’s own operating system – Hongmeng. After a round of rumors and news, Huawei finally unveiled
Harmony OS AKA HongMeng OS at
Huawei Developer Conference 2019.
On September 10, 2020, Huawei unveiled
HarmonyOS 2.0 at Huawei Developer Conference 2020 (HDC 2020) with added new distributed capabilities, including software bus, data management, and security. Huawei also introduced an adaptive UX framework that allows developers to quickly reach tens of millions of new devices and users.
On June 2, 2021, Huawei began a brand new chapter of HarmonyOS, by launching this
OS for smartphones with a tagline of “One as All, All as One”. Simultaneously, Huawei announced the installation of HarmonyOS on various devices.
According to Huawei, HarmonyOS will become an important aspect of Huawei’s ecosystem and gradually make its way to most of its devices over the course of the next few years.
What is HarmonyOS?
HarmonyOS (HongMeng OS) is a new microkernel-based, distributed operating system designed to deliver a new user experience across all devices and scenarios.
“We’re entering a day and age where people expect a holistic intelligent experience across all devices and scenarios. To support this, we felt it was important to have an operating system with improved cross-platform capabilities. We needed an OS that supports all scenarios, that can be used across a broad range of devices and platforms, and that can meet consumer demand for low latency and strong security.” said Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group.
“HarmonyOS is completely different from Android and iOS. It is a microkernel-based, distributed OS that delivers a smooth experience across all scenarios. It has a trustworthy and secure architecture, and it supports seamless collaboration across devices. You can develop your apps once, then flexibly deploy them across a range of different devices.” Richard added.
HarmonyOS is based on the four technical features described below:
1. Seamless Experience:
By adopting distributed architecture and distributed virtual bus technology, HarmonyOS offers a shared communications platform, distributed data management, distributed task scheduling, and virtual peripherals. With HarmonyOS, app developers won’t have to deal with the underlying technology for distributed apps, allowing them to focus on their own individual service logic. Developing distributed apps will be easier than ever before. Apps built on HarmonyOS can run on different devices while delivering a seamless, collaborative experience across all scenarios.
2. Smooth Performance:
HarmonyOS will address underperformance challenges with a Deterministic Latency Engine and high-performance Inter-Process Communication (IPC). The Deterministic Latency Engine sets task execution priorities and time limits for scheduling in advance. Resources will gravitate toward tasks with higher priorities, reducing the response latency of apps by 25.7%. The microkernel can make IPC performance up to five times more efficient than existing systems.
3. More Secure:
HarmonyOS uses a brand-new microkernel design that features enhanced security and low latency. This microkernel was designed to simplify kernel functions, implement as many system services as possible in user mode outside the kernel, and add mutual security protection. The microkernel itself provides only the most basic services like thread scheduling and IPC.
Harmony OS’s microkernel design uses formal verification methods to reshape security and trustworthiness from the ground up in a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). Formal verification methods are an effective mathematical approach to validate system correctness from the source, while traditional verification methods, such as functional verification and attack simulation, are confined to limited scenarios. Formal methods, by contrast, can use data models to verify all software running paths.
HarmonyOS is the first OS to use formal verification in device TEE, significantly improving security. In addition, because the HarmonyOS microkernel has much less code (roughly one-thousandth the amount of the Linux kernel), the probability of an attack is greatly reduced.
4. All in One:
Powered by a multi-device IDE, multi-language unified compilation, and a distributed architecture kit, HarmonyOS can automatically adapt to different screen layout controls and interactions, and support both drag-and-drop control and preview-oriented visual programming. This allows developers to more efficiently build apps that run on multiple devices. With a multi-device IDE, developers can code their apps once and deploy them across multiple devices, creating a tightly integrated ecosystem across all user devices.
The Huawei ARK Compiler is the first static compiler that can perform on par with Android’s virtual machine, enabling developers to compile a broad range of advanced languages into machine code in a single, unified environment. By supporting unified compilation in multiple languages, the Huawei ARK Compiler will help developers greatly improve their productivity.
HarmonyOS Features:
- New Home Screen
- Service Widgets
- Control Panel
- Service Center
- Smart Folder
- HarmonyOS Fonts
- Super Device
- Huawei Share
- Smart Home
- Task Center
- Better Performance
- App Guard
- Collaborative Security
Development Plan and Ecosystem: (Announced on August 10, 2019)
HarmonyOS 1.0 will be first adopted in its smart screen products, which are due to launch later this year. Over the next three years, HarmonyOS will be optimized and gradually adopted across a broader range of smart devices, including wearables, Huawei Vision, and head units for your car.
Version Timeline:
- HongmengOS 1.0 – 2019 (for TVs)
- HongmengOS 2.0 – 2020 (for PCs, SmartWatch/Bands, In-Vehicle Systems)
- HongmengOS 3.0 – 2021 (for Smart Speakers and Headphones)
- HongmengOS 4.0 – 2022 (for VR Glasses and more)
Open Source:
Huawei has planned to release HarmonyOS as an open-source platform, worldwide. Huawei will also establish an open-source foundation and an open-source community to support more in-depth collaboration with developers.
Ecosystem:
Huawei will open up and share its core capabilities in areas like connectivity, cameras, and AI. It will work closely with ecosystem partners to deliver apps and services that provide consumers top experience.
HarmonyOS 2.0:
Changes in HarmonyOS 2.0:
HarmonyOS 2.0 officially open-source and developers will be able to gain access to emulators, SDK packages, and IDE tools.
The open-source project – OpenHarmony, which is donated to OpenAtom Foundation, is released and Huawei has started to collaborate with developers and industry partners to grow contribution to the development of HarmonyOS as open-source software.
HarmonyOS 2.0 open roadmap and it’ll support the type of memory devices:
- From September 10, 2020 – Device with 128KB to 128MB RAM (including IoT devices such as smart TVs, wearables, cars, and more)
- From April 21, 2021 – Device with 128MB to 4GB RAM
- From October 2021 – Device with over 4GB RAM
HarmonyOS 2.0 Beta release developers:
Huawei has pushed a number of new software versions for the HarmonyOS beta testings and the company keeps testing new software patches to solve the bugs and issues with internal functionalities of the software.
HarmonyOS Phone launch:
According to Richard Yu, Huawei’s Consumer Business Group (CBG) CEO, Huawei will launch the first HarmonyOS smartphone in 2021.
Wang Chenglu, President of the Software Department, Huawei Consumer Business Group (BG) said: Users who’ll upgrade to EMUI 11 will get a HarmonyOS update “as soon as possible”. Users will also have the option to purchase new HarmonyOS devices by next year (2021).
HarmonyOS 2.0 Mobile Developer Beta Launch:
On December 16, 2020, Huawei
announced the mobile beta version of the HarmonyOS 2.0 for developers and on the same day, Huawei also opened HarmonyOS 2.0 test recruitment for the Huawei P40, Mate 30, and MatePad Pro devices in China.
Initial hand-on of the beta suggests that Huawei has made big changes in the base architecture of the HarmonyOS and made it the base of the EMUI 11 user interface to test its features.
However, a
Huawei insider revealed that the company will make changes in the user interface with the stable rollout of HarmonyOS 2.0 for mobile devices.
Up until now, Huawei has held three rounds of developer beta recruitments, the recent one (
second phase) includes Huawei Nova 6, Nova 7, and Nova 8 devices.
On June 2, Huawei announced the
public release of HarmonyOS for flagship devices – Huawei Mate 40, Mate 30, P40, and MatePad Pro devices. Alongside the public beta, the company also opened
HarmonyOS 2.0 closed beta for 28 other devices.
Huawei aims to install HarmonyOS in over 300-400 million devices in 2021:
On December 16, 2020, Huawei also
shared its plan to install HarmonyOS in over 300 million smart devices in 2021, and to complete this aim, the Chinese tech giant has partnered with various industry partners to include HarmonyOS on their respective devices.
Click to expand...