Huawei's answer to Android, HarmonyOS, is here

Huawei has announced their new cross-device operating system, HarmonyOS.

Richard Yu, Huawei's CEO, made the announcement at the company's Development Conference, HDC 2019, in Dongguan, China.

In light of recent political events, Huawei has made quite the statement, showing they can ditch Android at any time if need be.

"HarmonyOS (previously codenamed HongMeng) is a platform designed for a variety of devices, and is currently aimed at IoT (Internet of Things) devices, such as Smart displays or smartphone equipment."

Huawei has been in the midst of a political war between China and the US, reducing Huawei's access to Android, so it's not a surprise that they have created their own alternative operating system.

However, no official switches from Android to HarmonyOS have been confirmed.

"Huawei claims that with the rise of the IoT device, a more efficient operating system is needed. With these IoT devices packing less memory and storage than smartphones, they need significantly more streamlined code, and for 100 lines of Android code, you could just have one line of HarmonyOS code."

It's important to note that HarmonyOS can still provide powerful functionality across all sorts of devices, with its 'single kernel across devices approach'.

With this approach, Huawei are hoping to save developers home by providing one app that can be deployed across smart watches, fitness trackers, speakers etc.

Not only is Huawei launching their own operating system, they have made it very clear that it will also be Android compatible.

The first phase of HarmonyOS will begin as TV OS (Huawei Vision), which will be fully announced on day two of developer conference.

This will provide seamless casting and fluidity across devices.

As mentioned above, HarmonyOS will eventually feature on speakers, watches and car head units, as well as numerous other devices.

Lastly, developers will be able to provide apps for the platform, with it being open-source.

Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei, said:

"When can we put it on our smartphones? We can do it any time, but for the Google partnership, and efficiency, the priority will be for Google Android OS... if we cannot use it in the future, we can switch from Android".