[throwaway4good]

It is a micro kernel os. On top of it you can run parts of android in order support existing android apps.

I will give you it is not easy to get proper information on it as the primary documentation is in Chinese and there is quite a bit of bad faith coverage of anything Huawei out there.

Short term I think they focus on the Chinese market, so it doesn’t matter. However long term I guess they would have to advocate to English speaking developer communities.

[izacus]

What it is (at least the thing they've shown), it's just reskinned AOSP like Lineage, Graphene and other "OSes" which take Android and slightly modify it.

[throwaway4good]

The core of it can run on devices with at little as 128 kb and really has nothing to do with android:

https://device.harmonyos.com/en/docs/start/introduce/oem_wif...

Obviously what runs on a modern phone is a massive system of components and services. And if you want to android apps there would have pieces of android there.

What I think confuses people is that the demos and marketing videos really just shows stuff that is visual and kinda looks no different from a modern android phone.

However the ideas there: micro kernel, distributed os, letting user code run in kernel via static validation, ways of sharing capabilities across devices at os level ... are classic ideas that has been around in experimental oses for while, however never put into a big commercial os.

Hopefully they will succeed as these ideas can really bring the whole industry forward.

[ladyanita22]

You're the one confused. The RT kernel, the one that fits in 128kb, is Openharmony, and it is a simple RT os without anything special.

Harmony OS, this harmony OS, the one that's actually powerful and what you really care about, is just an Android reskin.

[throwaway4good]

A lot of this "stuff" comes from the Ars Technica article:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/harmonyos-hands-on-h...

Huawei’s HarmonyOS: “Fake it till you make it” meets OS development

While it is true that Huawei did officially respond to the Ars Technica article, one of their developers did a detailed walkthru of the article trying settle some of the misunderstandings.

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV12X4y1N7bd

It is in English but has a Chinese title which google hilariously translates into:

See the BBC again? The technology media from the West can't avoid the vulgarity. Seeing them embarrassing and black Hongmeng can't stand it, Brother Zhao refuted it.

Enjoy.

[yorwba]

I actually watched the full video (at 1× speed, because Bilibili has mislabeled the app download button as 倍速.) He has some criticisms of the Ars Technica article that I agree with. However, those aren't really relevant to the current thread.

He confirms that the developer beta reviewed in the article is running Linux on ARM with all pieces of Android present, modulo Google Mobile Services replaced by Huawei Mobile Services. He then criticizes the article for concluding that it's just Android without trying out any HarmonyOS-specific features, but doesn't demonstrate them himself. To borrow his analogy, if Android is English and HarmonyOS is Chinese, why does he speak English the whole time? (And why so slowly?)

The video would've been much better if he'd booted up an emulator himself to show what was missing from the Ars Technica article.

[FooBarWidget]

He did make references to API documentation on how to transfer a window from one device to another. It's too bad he didn't demonstrate it. I would love to see a follow up demonstration.

EDIT: apparently there is a demonstration video here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27368995

[ladyanita22]

He didn't demonstrate it because there was nothing to show. Harmony is Android.

[FooBarWidget]

Thank you for linking to the response video. I was wondering what was up with the Ars Technica review. This response has cleared some things up.

[rjzzleep]

HarmonyOS 1 and HarmonyOS 2 are not the same thing. You're talking about no.1. It was quite interesting and ambitious, but it never really worked out, but this version is actually based on Android. We don't really know to what extent though.

To be fair the HMS ecosystem is actually no small feat.

[throwaway4good]

I believe they are still trying to what is being described here:

https://developer.harmonyos.com/en/docs/documentation/doc-gu...

And I can see that there are actually multiple supported kernels and a kernel abstraction layer.

Nonetheless it will be interesting how far this will be taken. I do believe they are serious about updating existing phones.

And that there are iot devices coming out with hardware similar to the development board I linked to and are running some form of this os.

[izacus]

I think you mixed up the OS they're using on their watches and this OS they'll be flashing on smartphones.

They have a similar brand, but are significantly different.

[2Gkashmiri]

https://youtu.be/y2101ics8jc?t=2562

watch this. you pair your phone to tablet, your phone gets mirrored on the tablet and you can drag photos from this window to your email on the tab. that is an improvement i would say

edit: it appears they have a "plug in" for pcs. i wonder it is an adaptation of kde connect/my phone from microsoft but this is nice

[izacus]

Sure, this looks like an improvement on Samsungs Dex feature from Galaxy Android phones where you can wirelessly stream desktop UI to a TV.

What does that have to do with with what HarmonyOS is?

[throwaway4good]

It is a distributed os. What makes it different is that the program is running in part on the other device.

I haven’t seen it in practice but that is the theory. It is a classic idea that no one so far has done at commercial level.

Just to be clear I am not a Huawei insider, just some random tech dude who is being put off by the general tech community’s unwillingness to try and understand what Huawei is attempting to do.

[phendrenad2]

We're trying to understand what HarmonyOS is in the technical sense, not the philosophical sense

[2Gkashmiri]

from what i understand of dex, it was a convergent thing. i can already wirelessly stream desktop ui to my pc and even touch it with scrcpy but the ad shows you can pick photos from this stream ui on the laptop of the phone.