The current version of the OS has been built with open-source Android code to make Android apps compatible for the time being. It is designed to be used in all Huawei’s consumer products, including watches, televisions and vehicle systems, which makes it possible to integrate functions across devices. It is said to have 700m users and 2.2m developers.
The next version of Harmony is expected to drop all Android-linked code.
Harmony OS is an Android fork. Dropping all Android-linked code in an Android fork means removing almost all its code. I’m curious to know if Huawei have indeed developed their own OS, like Samsung’s Bada, and if it really contains no trace of Android.
I was curious about this too, but digging around on the internet doesn’t seem to give a definitive answer to this question. The “breaking Android application compatibility” story is real, see this Technode article.
What I think seems to be happening is that Huawei is developing HarmonyOS the way GNU/Linux came out of Unix, replacing bits and pieces at a time. They started out using many prominent Android components which led to some commentators dismissing it as just an AOSP fork, but over time they’re diverging into a genuine third mobile operating system, including their own ABI and development toolchain.
There is no good strategy or good outcome with Huawei. CCP virtually controls any Chinese economic entity and has appetite for “secrets” of the West. Embracing Huawei would’ve been as bad as outcasting it. We’re at the point where I hesitate to buy most things that originated in China.
So, I’m not exactly well versed in all this, could you fill me in on what threats Huawei poses to I, a random poor person going about my day in the US?
I refuse to believe a Corp or the NSA isn’t already looking over my shoulder, and with nothing to steal, wouldn’t using Huawei tech be like picking between McDonald’s and Wendy’s? Same product, different flavor sort of situation?
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OK, but in this metaphor I’m not a boxer, in a guy who watched part of rocky 2 and if you mugged me you’d find 3 pennies and a d20. I’m not even the ant unfortunately crushed in the machinations of these entities, I’m the dust in the grease among the cogs.
In a practical sense it is a waste of time and resources for either of them to record my life, but if the China phone has a prettier ui and a cheaper pricetag it would be a huge improvement for me personally. Could one Midwest honky with a foreign phone and no free time genuinely cause any damage?
yes. election time or funding CCP via extortion or identity theft. We’re being spied on by both sides, true, but there is no even a sign of checks and balances on CCP side. In the west we do uncover some “bad behaviour” and try to stop it.