Submitted by Huawei, the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer, is reportedly developing its own mobile OS. Phones made by the Chinese manufacturer currently run on the company’s Android skin, EMUI, but according to a report from The Information Huawei is building an alternative OS in case its relationship with Google sours.
The company reportedly has a team working on the mobile OS in Scandinavia, with the engineers including ex-Nokia employees. But although Huawei isn’t the only Android phone maker exploring alternatives (Samsung has its own Linux-based Tizen OS, although that’s mainly been deployed in IoT devices so far), sources speaking to The Information say the company’s operating system “isn’t far along.”
That ship has sailed. It’s probably in Fiji by now.
..aaand Larry Page and Sundar Pichai are laughing out hard, on their throne made out of the molten mobile devices of their surrendered enemies.
Because modern smartphone apps are tied to services. You can’t just re-implement the Android API and call it a day, like you can with win32 (and Wine has achieved that for a number of apps, the infamous Platinum Apps).
Your savegames are on Google Play Games. For example, I have some progress on Ridge Racer Slipstream, and I would like it to be there when I move to a new device, because I ‘ve paid some microtransactions to achieve it (a small amount but existing). Then there are movies purchased with Google Movies, whatever you happen to have saved on Maps, Google Music and Chrome Sync.
How exactly do they Huawei people plan to move all that user data into their own domestic OS? Or they think users will make a mostly lateral move that will cost them their “cloud” user data? (realistically speaking, how much better will the new OS be?)
Who can hear the evil laugh bouncing around the hall…
PS: Looks like Huawei has money to burn. Too bad they chose the wrong place to burn them on. They should be experimenting with wearable, which is a less locked-down territory, or IoT-whatever…
Edited 2016-06-24 04:16 UTC
Chinese domestic market Android phones don’t use any proprietary (non-AOSP) Google apps or services and still function perfectly . So that negates your entire argument.
Edited 2016-06-24 05:53 UTC
yet another “dead on arrival” mobile OS
It depends mostly how “unique” will be their OS.
Any new OS suffers from the lack of supported apps, but will it be a really new OS or based on Android, like Amazon OS?
If we can use android apps, and potentially side load Google market, there is no reason to prefer Android to Huawei OS.
I don’t know… my experience with Huawei devices is very limited (some 3G USB dongles, long ago) so their awful software I encountered may not be very relevant here. Still, I don’t have a lot of faith in their software skills.
Funny thing is that Huawei used to be in the Tizen camp too.
Then Huawei realized that Tizen has no chance to be successful and ended their efforts.
https://www.engadget.com/2014/08/25/richard-yu-wsj-interview/
Now they are trying again with a totally new OS. What can it do better than Tizen again? Though I am not optimistic, with Lite OS they have some experience in operating systems, and it will be interesting how this pans out.
” In his own words, Yu feels that “it’s easy to design a new OS, but the problem is building the ecosystem around it.””
Tizen wasn’t the problem, Yu. Mistake was trying a ‘baby’ to be ‘productive’.
[Nobody wants to raise kids anymore].
But will it include support for a headphone jack? That’s clearly what we need to discuss in the context of this new OS.
If it does it shall become the shinning beacon of user friendliness, and a prime candidate to replace the operating systems and devices from those evil user unfriendly global hegemons.
If not it must be pilloried as yet another example of companies ‘sticking it to the man’!
Is not the Jack. Is Rose yelling his name non-stop.
Intel announced that they will leave the mobile phone market, now Huawei (i.e it’s not like they have any other consumer product line that they could focus on, outside router equipment).
Not sure if this is related, but it seems Android will no longer support either platform.
Implementing your own mobile OS is very similar t the story of Linux/Windows. Consumers didn’t have anything against Linux until they figured out that Office does not run there. The same with mobile OS. For majority of consumers, the OS does not make a difference until they learn that they are unable to access Google Play and related Google services.
Roughly 300 million Chinese people are Android users. They don’t have Google Play or Google services on their devices. They wouldn’t notice any difference.
Only if they can run 100% of the apps they already have.
What does that team have on their resume? We specialize in failed operating systems. Want to spend a couple million on an operating system that will never see the light of day? We are your team! We have a long list of failed operating systems under our belt from Tizen to Meego to Jolla. Hire us now for your next attempt to negotiate a better deal with Google!
World doesn’t work like that. Markets are that would buy exactly because there isn’t an once of Google, or X Corp.