Today, Huawei will hold the largest global developer conference in history. The HarmonyOS operating system developed by Huawei itself has become the most noticeable hot spot of this conference. Previously, Huawei registered the trademark of HarmonyOS operating system, which attracted worldwide attention. Ren Zhengfei, chairman of Huawei, said that the HarmonyOS system was not specially used for mobile phones. But for the internet of things. HarmonyOS system can control the time delay to 5 milliseconds or even milliseconds or sub-milliseconds. This operating system can be compatible with such things as autonomous driving, industrial automation, printed circuit boards, switches, smart phones and data centers.

In the 5G era, the ecological war of HarmonyOS system.

The HarmonyOS system does exist. And it is very powerful. Ren Zhengfei also admitted that HarmonyOS’s shortcoming is that its ecological environment is not as good as that of Android. Huawei’s mobile phones have a large share of overseas sales. But Google’s Android system is the mainstream in overseas markets, and it will take time for HarmonyOS to replace it overseas. But from Ren Zhengfei’s words, we can analyze that although HarmonyOS system is not specially used for mobile phones, it does not mean that it cannot be used for mobile phones.

Huawei Developers Conference

Since the registration of HarmonyOS operating system, there has been a saying that it is a branch of Android system. This is a misunderstanding. Dr Zhang Rujing, the founder of SMIC, analyzed that HarmonyOS was not a branch or modification of Android. It is a brand-new and independent operating system. It is developed for the future 5G Internet of Things.

Google also has a Fuchsia system for the 5G Internet of Things. However, the optimized version of HarmonyOS’s Ark compiler based on EMUI version 9.1 is much faster than the Android native compiler in performance. Then, Google’s Fuchsia and Huawei’s HarmonyOS system are at the same level, while the Android operating system is at a lower level.

Whether Google’s Fuchsia or Huawei’s HarmonyOS system, their ultimate goal is to replace the 4G Android system. At present, the development progress of HarmonyOS system far exceeds that of Google’s Fuchsia system. And HarmonyOS system will definitely be released before Fuchsia.

Ark compiler+HarmonyOS system, let Android experience surpass Apple.

Smartphones are a very important aspect of Huawei’s 5G business. So how can Huawei’s smartphones establish their own ecological environment as soon as possible? This problem should be discussed in two aspects.

First of all, utilitarianism: This is the most fundamental condition and opportunity for HarmonyOS system to quickly open its own ecological environment. The code of APP is not machine code but byte code. If someone develops a system, as long as the virtual machine and compilation module are compatible with the bytecode of Android APP, then the system can directly use the Android APP ecosystem.

Secondly, it is openness: Huawei opens its own Ark compiler. Let more technicians who support Huawei participate.

In this way, I believe that Huawei’s ecological environment will be established soon. Yu Chengdong announced at the Weibo that the open source Ark compiler would be released at the Huawei Global Developers Conference on August 9th.

Huawei Developers Conference

Android system is written in Java language, which is easy to learn. But it has a disadvantage, that is, it can’t communicate directly with the bottom of the system. Can only run on so-called virtual machines. To put it bluntly, the virtual machine is equivalent to a setter. First, the Android application is installed on the virtual machine, and then it is passed to the bottom of the machine.

Then the problem comes. What if the setter has a problem? The performance in Android system is the mobile phone software Caton. So, can you communicate directly with the bottom of the machine without this setter? Ark compiler solves this problem. All software of Android system can communicate directly with the bottom of the system through the compilation of Ark compiler.

Then HarmonyOS system plus Ark compiler will replace the setter of virtual machine. Why doesn’t Apple’s mobile phone get stuck in use? It just doesn’t have the setter and writes code directly for the bottom of the machine. The software of Apple’s mobile phone runs much smoother than that of Android.

Another issue worthy of attention is that Huawei’s HarmonyOS system is a microkernel. In fact, the kernel of the operating system can be a macro kernel or a micro kernel. The system development of macro kernel is difficult, and many functions with extremely high authority can be realized in it. After all, most of the functions of the operating system are in it, and solving the problem is the most direct. The Android system belongs to the macro kernel.

Because these modules have the highest authority, as long as one module goes wrong, the whole system will collapse. Microkernel, on the other hand, has few modules with the highest authority, such as task management of operating system and memory allocation and recycling management. Other modules do not have the highest authority, so even if there is an error, the system will not crash. Similarly, the development of microkernel is difficult, but the system stability is high.

At present, Huawei has officially announced the installation details and download address of the Ark compiler in the official community. In the near future, Huawei may also build an ecosystem like Apple, Microsoft and Google. (The author is a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, China Academy of Social Sciences)