I am using a Huawei Mate 20 pro phone for almost three years. As a digital enthusiast, I am very active in system upgrades. Every time I receive a system update notification, I will upgrade it as soon as possible. This time the Hongmeng system was released, and I couldn't wait, and it was still the internal beta version that I applied for an upgrade. It has been five days since the upgrade to version 2.0 of the Hongmeng system, and my biggest feeling is that there is no change .
After upgrading to a new system, the data is still there, the application is still there, and all the system settings are still there, from the interface to the operation method, completely unchanged. The apps in the app store are not uncommon, almost all of them are Android apps. The Android program runs on the Hongmeng system, which is very happy, and it does not feel like it is running on an operating system that is not Android. In the past few days, I have used all the apps I have, and there are no crashes, failures to start, abnormal interface, etc.
Speaking of changes, it feels like it runs more smoothly. Of course, this is just a personal feeling. There is no software test, and no quantitative comparative analysis. It may be a psychological effect. The interface has also made some small adjustments, such as separating notification messages from the control center, but if you don't experience it carefully, it's basically imperceptible.
A few days ago, the media reported that since Huawei released the HarmonyOS (Hongmeng operating system) mobile phone system on June 2, the number of mobile phone users upgraded in less than a week has exceeded 10 million. This is undoubtedly a very commendable achievement. You must know that the first batch of supported mobile phones are only a few models such as the Mate 40 series, P40 series, and Mate 30 series. In addition, most people are not digital enthusiasts and are not keen on system upgrades. Judging from the current public opinion feedback, there are very few negative comments. This also shows that the seemingly unchanged upgrade strategy is very effective. Although people like the new and hate the old, they are very resistant to changing their habits. Windows Vista has become the worst version of Windows in history because it is too aggressive. When iOS 7 enabled the flat system style, it was also criticized countlessly. The upgrade process of the Hongmeng system is so smooth, which is quite remarkable.
The Hongmeng operating system is so similar to Huawei's previous customized version of Android, and the support for Android applications is so perfect that it makes people think, is it another Android system with a shell? There are already many remarks on the Internet about the Hongmeng system being an Android shell, so there is no need to repeat it.
For this view, my point of view, it doesn't matter whether it is a shell or not .
First of all, from the perspective of the development process of science, it is all progressing step by step. Even great scientists like Newton said:
If I see farther than others, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.
The same is true in the field of software development. Linux draws on the design ideas of Unix, and is consistent with Unix in terms of interfaces, so that users can seamlessly switch from Unix systems to Linux systems. The Android system did not develop from scratch, but chose the Linux kernel, and built a complete system framework on the basis of the Linux kernel.
What's more, most of Android's code is under the Apache license. Anyone who has read the Apache license agreement knows that this license agreement is quite loose, and the source code can be modified. The modified source code can be closed source, or changed to other license agreements, and can also be used for commercial purposes. Therefore, it is completely feasible to develop a new mobile operating system based on Android, and there is no problem of stuck neck, unless Google chooses to close the source of Android one day. Even then, the current code still works.
In fact, Google and Apple have also done such a thing. For example, the browser kernel, Apple engineers developed a new kernel WebKit based on KHTML. Google engineers first participated in the development of the WebKit kernel for Android and the Chrome browser. Later, after the wings were hardened, they parted ways with Apple and forked a blink kernel from WebKit. There are many such projects, for example, borrowingSSL is a forked version of OpenSSL. It can be seen that it is completely feasible to develop its own branches based on the existing software first, and then to develop its own branches independently after it has the strength.
Many Chinese people have some moral cleanliness, just like the virgin complex of many men, and it is difficult to see a little foreign technology mixed in it. Over the years, China has been talking about independent intellectual property rights, but how many people really understand what independent intellectual property rights are?
The first thing to understand is that patents protect ideas, not implementations. In other words, even if Android is rewritten, it may also face patent issues. Did Microsoft write a single line of Android code? Why does the Android system pay Microsoft billions of dollars in patent fees every year? There is also the century lawsuit between Google and Oracle about Java that ended not long ago. Although Google finally won the lawsuit, it still shows that it is not by rewriting the code to avoid patent issues .
Some basic patents are difficult to bypass. For example, if the father of the mouse applied for a patent for the mouse, no matter whether the mouse is made square or round, it cannot be avoided. There are also some patents stuffed into the standard that are hard to get around. If you don't follow standards, you can't interoperate with other people's products, and if you follow standards, patents can't be bypassed. This is why those tech giants are very active in incorporating their technologies into international standards. When Huawei competed with Ericsson, Nokia, Lucent, Cisco and other companies in the communications field, it encountered such a dilemma. There is no way but to play according to other people's rules, and you have to pay a lot of royalties every year. But as long as you don't get to the table, there's always a chance. Huawei actively applies for patents and joins various international standards organizations. In the end, it holds more and more patents. With the bargaining chips, it can carry out cross-licensing of patents and is no longer controlled by others. At present, in the field of 5G communication, Huawei can also collect patent fees from other multinational companies.
To be honest, in the field of software, the operating system has been studied for so many years, and the method you can think of can be written as a patent, others have already taken the lead. Unless there is an earth-shattering breakthrough, but from the perspective of the progress of civilization, leap-forward development is always accidental.
Therefore, it doesn't matter whether it is a shell or not, the important thing is to be able to understand the existing operating system (whether it is Linux or Android) and have the ability to develop itself. As for innovation, the point is not to subvert existing technologies, but to accumulate more new patents. The more patents you hold, the more bargaining chips you have.
Now the source code of Harmony OS 2.0 is also open, and you can go and see if it is a shell. Of course, there are still people who question that the open source code and the system used by Huawei are not the same code. This is neither proven nor falsifiable. I chose to remain silent and let the bullets fly for a while before jumping to conclusions.
To say, the future of Hongmeng system is bright? I really don’t think so. The ecological construction problems facing Hongmeng are still very big.
The compatibility of the Hongmeng system with the Android system is so good that it makes people feel that they have changed an operating system. This is a good thing for users, but for software developers, it is even less motivated to develop Harmony Edition applications. Originally, in order to develop across desktop, Android, and iOS systems, developers are as big as cows. In order to reduce development and maintenance costs, they have come up with various cross-platform solutions. Now there is one more HarmonyOS system to adapt to, and Android apps can run on both HarmonyOS and Android systems. Why develop two sets? There are only a few Hongmeng apps in the Huawei App Store, such as Sina News and CCTV Audio & Video. The functions and interfaces are very simple, which also shows that the enthusiasm of software developers is very low.
There are some barriers to Hongmeng application development. Currently, it supports Java, JS and C/C++, which seems to be well supported. However, there are certain differences between the Java system interface and Android, and there is still a certain amount of work to rewrite Android applications into Hongmeng applications. Although the threshold for JS development is very low, Hongmeng's JS is still somewhat different from the usual front-end development, and many front-end frameworks do not yet support it. As for C/C++ application development, it is more difficult and impossible to become the main force of application development. More importantly, there are very few materials for Hongmeng application development at present, and the organization is not good. It is not comparable to the documents issued by companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple. This is excusable. After all, Huawei used to be mainly engaged in hardware, and software was also rushing to the shelves.
If the Hongmeng system is only played by the Huawei family, it will definitely not be able to play. Huawei's hardware business is sanctioned, and it can't support it with some stock equipment. It is not realistic to mobilize support from friends and businessmen, after all, there is competition in product lines. How to break this game is not something that people of my level can think of, so I can only wait and see what happens.
Anyway, no matter how you look at it, the Hongmeng system is difficult, but you can't lose confidence. Every step China takes is difficult, but we still manage to do it. Therefore, we still have to cheer for the Hongmeng system here.
While researching the Hongmeng system, I also got the intermediate certificate of Hongmeng application development. When I think about the application, I will try it again.
