Submitted by Hundreds of technical experts from many of China’s biggest state-owned and private companies, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China Telecom, Meituan, and Baidu, all gathered in Beijing last month. The purpose behind the meeting was for their staff to receive training so they could be certified as developers on Huawei’s Harmony Operation System (OS).
While most observers were looking the other way, Huawei has been quietly building an independent Chinese operating system that isn’t subject to U.S. sanctions. In the four years after the telecom giant was banned from using Google apps, the Shenzhen-based company has been making significant strides toward achieving its long-term goal: To dethrone Android and make its HarmonyOS the default operating system in China.
↫ Nina Xiang for Forbes Asia
HarmonyOS is poised to succeed in beating iOS and Android where others have failed, if only because the Chinese state is pushing homegrown solutions hard. It’s already hit 10% market share in China, closing in on iOS’ 17%, but still kilometres away from Android’s 72%. However, with both local governments and the government in Beijing enacting all kinds of laws and guidelines to force companies, institutions, and people to switch to homegrown solutions, it wouldn’t surprise me to see this market share climb fast.
And that’s actually okay! Setting aside the fact the Chinese government is a genocidal totalitarian surveillance nightmare apparatus, I think it’s entirely understandable, reasonable, and a good investment to have homegrown technology solutions and platforms. I wish the European Union did something similar, but that ship has probably sailed after we let Microsoft gut whatever was left of Nokia after Apple was done with it.
Yes, what could possibly go wrong?
They already have cameras everywhere, a “social credit score” that punishes you if you are not a good citizen, and AI based “emotion tracking” system to further clamp down on a population they are actively pursuing genocide against:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57101248
Why would having government mandate on all mobile phones be bad?
I do not trust superpowers in general to respect privacy. United States is not better than China or Russia. Every hierarchical societies get bad over time because of the human factor, people in power will take advantage of their position no matter how you name the hierarchy.
Don’t be silly, United States _are_ much better than China or Russia. Yes, it is necessary to keep our governments in check and comparisons to governments that have long since crossed the threshold of a tyranny are warranted. We don’t want to end up as one of them. But, no, China’s and Russia’s problems are far greater and we are doing these nations disservice by trivialising them.
ndrw,
China and Russia are guilty of arresting/assassinating/stomping out dissidents/political opponents/ free press, etc. I would not want to live under those conditions. However I do worry that our own democracy may not be as robust as we were lead to believe. Thankfully the US has three branches of government to keep each other in check, but it’s hard to deny that these crucial institutions are becoming less stable and more politicized. Things could go downhill all too fast under a populist leader with an effective reality distortion field and a gullible electorate. By the time fascism becomes an undeniable fact, it may be too late to eradicate. The invocation of Godwin’s law may be appropriate here.
Alfman,
Yes, russia and China are in entirely different leagues.
Here there are real abuses, but people can still speak up without (much) repercussions. We can protest, we can petition, we can even recall government employees from office.
I hope whatever “slump” we are in becomes over quickly, and we go back to improving in terms of democracy.
social credit like many journalist have showed is not really what west think
https://www.heidi.news/cyber/on-en-sait-plus-sur-le-credit-social-chinois-et-ce-n-est-pas-ce-que-vous-croyez
anyway with all assange, snowden have said…usa seem better to get information everything than oter
How many
– wars and war kills for the USA and China?
– journalists arrested for telling how NSA (or any Chinese equivalent) spy on everybody in the USA and China
– Native American more do live now than 50 years ago (they are less)
– Chinese Uigur (they are more, exempted because of being a minority of the one child policy) – anti genocide –
– How is that when people vote laws on referendums (great democratic tool) in USA the results are against what politicians do, for instance war on drugs vs Marihuana legalization?
– How many totalitarian coups and governments did USA helped to hijack democracies, such as Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ukraine, etc, and how many China?
And do you expect that well-informed people would not laugh after that sentence?
Last but not least are you sure about the “social credit” you think it is a law there, when people living there – a lot of expat youtubers – usually explain that it is a hoax.
I mean, ideally this will have the effect that Android app makers will try to avoid being completely dependent on Play Services. So this can benefit AOSP-based ROMs such as GrapheneOS or LineageOS.
Examples: messenger apps that have working notifications without Firebase Cloud Messaging, banking apps are that work without Safetynet or Play Integrity.
gagol2,
Often the reaction on things like this is “yuck, china”. While it is true that china invades privacy, but our own “five eyes” are proven hypocrites. Congress just reauthorized the “section 702” FISA court, the same court that a was found unconstitutional after Snowden revelations.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fisa-reforms-face-uncertain-future-after-congress-renews-fbi-spy-tool/ar-AA1lDwqm
That’s scary enough on it’s own, but the fact that we’re dipping our toes in putin-esque fascism at the highest echelons of government right here in the US is alarming.
j0scher,
+1!
For many people the debate boils down to one of nationality and they fail to make this connection: the platforms themselves are at fault. Technologies that hand control to corporations are fundamentally vulnerable regardless of corporate nationality.
Unfortunately many companies are headed in the wrong direction and are guilty of creating dependencies that don’t just harm competition, but harm owner privacy and control as well. Unfortunately the very same mechanisms that corporations are using to control our devices and data can grants governments control over these as well.
I really wish the EU would have backed and pushed SailfishOS. It’s beautiful.
Some years ago the EU decided to invest in an European operating system for mobile. That was Symbian. Then the whole deal of Nokia with Microsoft happened …
I agree with your assessment overall, Tom. But the headline is ridiculous clickbait. There is absolutely zero chance HarmonyOS “dethrones” Android. It might become popular, even wildly popular, in China. But that will be it. On smartphones its _literally a fork of Android_. Anyone who thinks they can out-Android Google should be committed.
So I guess locked down app stores, being closed source (from an open source base) having 100 percent back door access from the government.
And for all those who think this will help ASOP “ Alongside HarmonyOS 4, Huawei also announced the launch of HarmonyOS NEXT, which is a “pure” HarmonyOS version, without Android libraries and therefore incompatible with Android apps.”
So no Harmony will not help ASOP or any other open source project though they use tons of Open Source code.
But hey they are “sticking it to the Americans” (Not)
The effect will be more cost for developers to port apps to new apis (wildly different to avoid patent risk) and eventually less competition. In the beginning it will hit Chinese customers first (Chinese apps that have marginal presence outside that would be 1st candidates to slash on android are likely not well adapted for western users anyway) but later it will even out and settle on two partially exclusive silos.
“I wish the European Union did something similar, but that ship has probably sailed after we let Microsoft gut whatever was left of Nokia after Apple was done with it.”
What has Apple got to do with Nokia being a basket case? If Nokia died it’s because of Nokia. Anyone who worked there at the time knew it was over long before Microsoft even got involved.
Android is pretty much on a fast path to harakiri as far as I am concerned. Try using any 3rd party launcher on any device other than a Pixel and you’ll find it very limiting with options such as gesture navigation not working, Customizability used to be a great selling point for Android users. With Google further allowing OEMs to ‘lockdown’ functionality and add as much bloat/spyware as possible, it’ll continue to alienate more and more Android users. I fear that we would eventually be left with a limiting iPhone-esque experience. If I wanted an iPhone, I’d get the real thing from Apple with all its warts.