
Huawei is working on its own mobile OS in case things sour with Google - jonbaer
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/23/12011732/huawei-developing-own-mobile-os
======
CthulhuOvermind
Currently working in this company, I guarantee you Huawei is working on its
own version of everything. Any tool we use is always considered as something
we should aim to replace with a version of our own.

A custom OS does not suprise me in the slightest, considering there are custom
ARMv8 CPU's in development as well

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Pretty much every Android OEM has a plan B. It would kinda stupid not to.
Samsung has proudly shown off Tizen and even releases products with it.
Actually, its the fourth largest mobile in term of market share. Sailfish is
reportedly used internally in several companies as well.

The more the merrier. I would love to see Android be a Nexus-only product
where there's a high level of quality, fast updates, and years of
security/platform updates opposed to the excessively skinned Android phones
that maybe get one major update in their lifetime and then get tossed into the
landfill.

edit: I should note Tizen isn't a Samsung product, they are just one of its
biggest users and contributors. Its an open source OS managed by the Linux
foundation.

~~~
0xFFC
>Pretty much every Android OEM has a plan B. It would kinda stupid not to.

I am genuinely not capable of understanding this logic.google is not a small
company and they are not going to destroy Android with these kind of stupid
decisions.

So why Samsung and etc does spend billions on new softwares when they can
simply fork Android (in most extreme situations to respond to Google, just
like what Amazon did).

~~~
cronjobber
The concern is not that Android "goes away", but that google enslaves the
hardware companies like good old MS of yore enslaved the PS clone makers.

~~~
Zigurd
That ship has sailed. Learn how to prosper in that role or do something else.
If you think you can do an OS, go for it. I would like to see a third
successful mobile OS.

~~~
zyx321
>If you think you can do an OS, go for it.

It's not about competing with Android. It's about bargaining power. If you
depend on Google, they can dictate any terms they like. Having an alternative
to Android, even a crappy one, sets an upper limit to how hard Google can
screw you over.

------
pawadu
The main issue here is that a bunch of multi-billion businesses are dependent
on a company that has its own agenda. Google doesn't care about Huawei or
Samsung or Sony. If dropping Android and joining Windows Phone camp could
somehow improve their ad revenue and data gathering they would probably do it.

So while I don't think Huawei will get anywhere with their OS. They (and
Samsung) are trying to send a message to Google: act like a real partner or we
are out.

~~~
bllguo
> So while I don't think Huawei will get anywhere with their OS. They (and
> Samsung) are trying to send a message to Google: act like a real partner or
> we are out.

Well I agree with the first sentence, but the second? They really don't have
that much leverage; I highly doubt that's anywhere near the message they are
trying to send. You seem to imply Google should feel threatened by these
moves, which I imagine is far from the case.

------
exhilaration
Samsung is allegedly doing the same thing with Tizen:
[http://9to5google.com/2016/06/13/report-claims-that-
samsung-...](http://9to5google.com/2016/06/13/report-claims-that-samsung-is-
considering-moving-all-of-its-devices-to-tizen/)

I don't think this is likely to happen, it would destroy both Samsung's and
Huawei's markets in the West. Perhaps Korean and Chinese consumers might
switch to the new platforms but I can't see those of us in the Americas and
Europe giving up our Google services.

~~~
pjmlp
From native point of Tizen already had two reboots.

First it was based on Meego APIs, then it got the C++ dialect from BADA OS
(very similar to Symbian) and now they rebooted it again using EFL + C, but
adding another C++ API in the process.

Native is not always open to everyone, for example for TVs app developers can
only use WebApps and need to become a partner for native code.

So I doubt that Tizen will ever get an app eco-system that people will bother
to use.

------
Aoyagi
So who do I distrust less, Google, who is shamelessly harvesting all kinds of
data just because they can, or a company with history of malware/spyware
allegations?

~~~
gypsy_boots
> or a company with history of malware/spyware allegations

I'm not familiar with Huawaei, what's the story behind this?

~~~
wepple
There were a few stories a while back, although IMO they were fairly light on
details and data to back up their claims:
[http://au.idigitaltimes.com/malware-found-pre-installed-
xiao...](http://au.idigitaltimes.com/malware-found-pre-installed-xiaomi-
huawei-lenovo-phones-107190)

More generally however, a lot of tech manufactured in China has concern around
it. Numerous western govt's have blacklisted the use of anything Chinese-
produced over fears of espionage and general quality. A good example is the
'backdoors' that have shown up in Lenovo computers post-acquisition.

I think there may be a little confusion between the the fact that Huawei makes
networking gear which is blacklisted with a number of western govt's, with
their mobile offerings - and several reports of 'malware' haven't helped muddy
the waters.

That said I wouldn't use a Huawei phone.

Edit: here's the report regarding Malware:
[https://public.gdatasoftware.com/Presse/Publikationen/Malwar...](https://public.gdatasoftware.com/Presse/Publikationen/Malware_Reports/G_DATA_MobileMWR_Q2_2015_EN.pdf)

It got a ton of upvotes on HN much to my confusion, given that the PDF reads
like a marketing release trying to sell mobile AV (there's a whole side-topic
of conversation there). Furthermore, the click-bait title highlights Lenovo,
Huawei, etc when the actual report only outlines 3 never-heard-of-before
vendors and mentions they 'suspect' the other vendors of distributing infected
phones.

Again, I would never own a Chinese-designed phone, but I think it's worth
verifying claims.

------
brudgers
The source article: [https://www.theinformation.com/how-a-former-apple-
designer-i...](https://www.theinformation.com/how-a-former-apple-designer-is-
updating-huaweis-look)

------
swalsh
If Huawei's history is any indication they're probably just taking the android
code, and doing a find and replace.

------
xiphias
There are so many innovations that can be done in the world (and to Android
itself as well), but another new OS is not one that would make sense (maybe a
HTML5+JS based, but there are already open source OSs based on that). Even
Microsoft has a hard time getting into the Mobile OS market. Anyways, good
luck to Huawei (and I wish they would try to beat Samsung in the high-end the
mobile market).

------
Zigurd
The choices are pretty grim:

The only OS other than iOS and Android that has a managed language runtime is
Windows. It's not a bad phone OS. But it is US-made and if you are Chinese,
you don't want NSA inside.

Possibly the best alternative is to do an OS derived from AOSP. But only
Amazon has done a good job with this, building a really polished commercial
product with a complete (for their purposes of media consumption) ecosystem.

Then there is Sailfish. The main problem with Sailfish is that C++/Qt/Linux is
not a competitive app environment compared with Swift on iOS or Android's
Java-like runtime.

Web app runtimes on Tizen and other contenders taking this route have also
proven to be underdeveloped, slow, and too under-resourced to get them past
general problems with web apps, framework consensus, etc.

~~~
pjmlp
Tizen is also a very schizophrenic OS.

First they ditched the API inherited from Meego by their own BADA flavored
ones with that Symbian C++ touch, and recently they ditched those again by C +
EFL with another new C++ one to avoid losing C++ developers.

Also the native APIs aren't available everywhere where Tizen runs, for example
on TVs only the Web app runtime is available to all developers. For native one
needs to pay extra.

So besides going back to stone age C style APIs, their continuous change of
direction doesn't inspire any confidence to invest into the platform.

------
harigov
For any partnership with billions at stake, I would consider such experiments
as insurance. It's a good thing that Huawei is being proactive in this
regards. Although I do wonder why don't they build it on AOSP instead of
building something from scratch.

------
fit2rule
I would love to see Creative Labs return to the scene with Plaszma OS, which
they were doing before iOS and Android took all the ice cream.

So many alternative ways to use Linux to provide an awesome user experience ..

------
0x006A
EMUI is terrible, if only they would make it easy to run stock Android.

~~~
MichaelGG
Yep. It shows that Huawei, at least those UI developers, fundamentally do not
understand how OSes work. EMUI, when you invoke the switch window function,
has a single button to kill all running processes (or activities or whatever
Android calls them). Hitting it by accident is easy. And once you do so, the
UI proclaims with glee how much memory it freed up. Even when, on my phone,
I've never seen free mem under 800MB.

Are there any non-US companies that do well in creating UIs?

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AcerbicZero
After my disappointing experience with the Nexus 6P, I can't imagine a
situation where I would roll the dice with Huawei hardware, let alone
software.

~~~
TsomArp
Can you elaborate? I'm interested on the Nexus 6P.

