Huawei Pure Blood HarmonyOS first measured! Tencent Ali is strong, breaking Apple’s Android monopoly, and talking to executives to reveal the details of research and development.
Author | Yun Peng
Editor | Li Shuiqing
Zhi Dongxi reported on October 8 that today,Huawei HarmonyOS NEXT is officially open beta, and pure blood HarmonyOS is finally open to all users.
Just now, Zhithing upgraded its Mate 60 Pro to the latest HarmonyOS NEXT.0.0.71 system version, which is the real "pure blood HarmonyOS".
Familiar interface, different kernel, different experience:
The startup, operation and interaction of various applications are smoother, and the dynamic effect is more delicate and rich.
Xiaoyi is proficient in reading texts, recognizing screens, providing all kinds of intelligent suggestions, performing all kinds of complex operations, and becoming an all-round AI agent.
There are all kinds of daily apps, such as Alipay, Taobao, JD.COM, Meituan, Tik Tok, Ctrip and Gaode … The interface is more concise, beautiful and refreshing.
Most importantly,This is an experience realized on the real "pure blood" domestic self-developed operating system.
▲ System main interface
Since Yu Chengdong announced the official time of HarmonyOS’s NEXT beta at Huawei’s new product launch conference on September 26th, the industry and consumers have been expecting this day.
There is no doubt,This is a milestone for Huawei, HarmonyOS and China’s operating system.
In the words of Huawei executives, the development of HarmonyOS operating system.The workload is comparable to "two bombs and one satellite". Huawei needs to completely recreate a new system by means of system engineering. It took Huawei 10 years and invested 20,000 people to make this happen.
At the recent swearing-in meeting in HarmonyOS, Xu Zhijun, vice chairman and rotating chairman of Huawei, said,Only when HarmonyOS operating system has its own ecology can it be regarded as a real mobile operating system, and it can coordinate applications, operating systems and chips.
▲ On September 26th, HarmonyOS Qian Fan Battle Swearing Meeting.
Today, HarmonyOS has initially achieved this goal, and applied ecology has begun to take shape.
Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei and chairman of terminal BG, said that native HarmonyOS is a new life and is striving to grow.HarmonyOS kernel is an operating system kernel made by real people in China, which completely ends the history of operating system kernel dominated by the West for more than 30 years.
The previous HarmonyOS system relied on Google’s AOSP (open source project), and the software ecology was compatible with Android, andThe birth of pure blood HarmonyOS means that HarmonyOS will bid farewell to the Android ecosystem and establish its own application ecosystem, so that HarmonyOS and Android will be independent of each other.
As a whole, almost all daily applications have been adapted. In addition, the system fluency has been greatly improved and the AI experience has been significantly upgraded. The experience of pure blood HarmonyOS has become very mature and has unique advantages.
Just this morning,Tencent announced that the native version of WeChat HarmonyOS officially started to invite internal testing.Some users will be pushed, and the official version will be released soon.
On the other hand, the HarmonyOS version of WPS is also open for public beta. It can be predicted that all kinds of mainstream applications that are not adapted will be released in HarmonyOS one after another.
Next, from the actual experience to the key thinking and R&D details behind Huawei, we will share them further.
First, the first experience of pure blood HarmonyOS: the details are optimized and the fluency is intuitive
The first batch of products pushed by Pure Blood HarmonyOS are Huawei folding screen Mate X5 series, Huawei Mate 60 series and tablet computer Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 inch series.
As mentioned earlier, HarmonyOS and Android are completely separated. When upgrading the system, we should also consider the backup of application data.
However, when upgrading, the system will intimately tell you which applications have not been "HarmonyOS" yet. In addition, you can back up the existing data in your mobile phone with one click during the upgrading process.
When everything is ready, we can upgrade!
After the upgrade, the new words "Powered By OpenHarmony" appeared on the boot screen.
In terms of UI interface, some details have been redesigned, such as the fuzzy dynamic effect when the application is deleted by sliding in the desktop background:
Sliding switch between desktop home page and negative screen has fuzzy sinking dynamic effect, and multiple service cards can be stacked together, sliding switch:
Multi-device collaboration replaces HyperTerminal in system setup;
Huawei’s own application interface is more exquisite, beautiful and concise, such as Huawei video, Huawei music and Huawei reading:
Lock the screen when playing music, there will be different live windows to operate and notification capsules at the bottom for interaction.
In addition to these optimizations, in fact, in the actual operation process, the fluency of the whole system is very high, and the sliding chirality, operating sensitivity and dynamic feedback are very good.
Although it is difficult to quantify, the intuitive feeling is that it is so smooth and silky!
Generally speaking, Pure Blood HarmonyOS is not a "makeover" at first, but a familiar face, which is very friendly to users, faster to get started and lower in learning cost. Some details are optimized and fluency is improved, so we can feel that HarmonyOS is a very mature system, after all, it has been polished for five years.
Second, the application ecology is completely separated from Android! You have almost everything you want for food, clothing, housing, study and entertainment.
Next, let’s take a quick look at the applied ecological experience in HarmonyOS that everyone is most concerned about.
First of all, the official version of WeChat in HarmonyOS is not available yet, but the internal test has already started, so it is inevitable that WeChat will adapt to HarmonyOS in the future.
In terms of application download, it is typical that all applications should be downloaded through Huawei’s official app store, and the downloaded version will be HarmonyOS-based HarmonyOS native applications.
Let’s briefly look at some daily applications by classification:
Business, social and photo beautification:
Life service, news, film and television and live broadcast:
Fitness, office, travel, food:
On the whole, basically, the applications we need every day have been adapted and perfected, and only a few applications have not been adapted.
Game applications have always been a kind of slow adaptation, but it is surprising that popular mobile games such as the glory of the king and Peace Elite have already launched a "preview version" or a "HarmonyOS version".
Popular new mobile games such as "Magic Tower" and "Cangyi: Chaos Effect" directly support HarmonyOS.
Of course, all the popular tours such as "Enjoy yourself" have already supported HarmonyOS.
It is worth mentioning that,Although some native applications in HarmonyOS will have some imperfect functions, it also leads to the "small but beautiful" of these applications.
For example, there is no short video in Meituan, the Alipay homepage is shorter, the function is concise and there is no advertisement, and there is no advertisement or live broadcast in Tik Tok.
▲ Alipay (left) and JD.COM (right)
The main functions of the application are core functions, and more value-added services have not yet been launched.
▲ Tik Tok (left) and Meituan (right)
Overall,There is no need to worry about whether pure blood HarmonyOS can be used. Not only can it be used, but it is also easy to use. The main characteristics of these applications are fluency and conciseness.
Third, HarmonyOS AI experience: the small art blessed by the big model is smart and capable, and it is hard to be Apple’s new Siri
Another outstanding advantage of the new pure blood HarmonyOS is AI ability, and a series of heavy upgrades of intelligent body and small art combined with large model ability have already landed in HarmonyOS.
Now we can breathe out Xiaoyi by long pressing the bar at the bottom. Words, photos and documents can be dragged to Xiaoyi with one click, and Xiaoyi can perform corresponding operations or give suggestions.
For example, drag and drop pictures to generate tables directly, and drag and drop pictures to extract words:
Drag and drop words and documents to generate a summary:
After receiving the information of the meeting, drag it to Xiaoyi, who can recognize the text and directly generate the schedule, and then directly ask Xiaoyi about the schedule:
Text pictures in web browsing can also be dragged to Xiaoyi to understand and extract information:
For the document content, Xiaoyi can understand the document, abstract answers, mind maps, document translation, financial report analysis, table extraction and note elimination. In terms of text ability, Xiaoyi can polish and rewrite, intelligently typeset and intelligently abstract:
In terms of search ability, Xiaoyi can directly recognize the screen and search for things in pictures:
It is understood that Xiaoyi is deeply integrated with encyclopedia of China, encyclopedia of Tik Tok and Huawei’s own encyclopedia knowledge base.
Xiaoyi can also check government affairs and make policy calculations; You can search for scenic spots and plan your play; You can search the route and make navigation planning. Xiaoyi’s continuous dialogue ability also performed well.
▲ Continuous dialogue and navigation
Overall,The AI experience of Xiaoyi Agent is undoubtedly in the first echelon among various agents, and its function richness obviously exceeds the current progress of Apple Intelligence.
Fourth, the data privacy security protection is dead to the end, and the authority is strictly checked. "If you can’t give it, don’t give it."
The new version of HarmonyOS also has many upgrades in privacy protection.
For example, a secure access mechanism is provided for pictures and cameras, and the App can only call the camera App that comes with the system. When taking pictures, there will be a "secure access" icon, and the content App in the frame is completely unavailable.
The management of user rights has been further refined, and granting single access once is one of the outstanding features. Generally speaking, just give what you want to use and give nothing else.
For example, to change an avatar picture, we can only give the App permission for this photo, not all photos.
We can only give the data specified by the App. This ability has covered six key permissions, such as location, file, gallery, camera, contact and clipboard.
Many other permissions have been listed as prohibited open permissions:
1. Read the list of installed applications.
Step 2 Access information
3. Install other applications in the application
4. Access to call records
5. Create a desktop shortcut
6. Making calls and managing calls
7. Get equipment information
8. Access to storage
9. Display the floating window
Have you found that these permissions are the top priority of data privacy and security protection, and they are also the hardest hit areas for information leakage.
For some limited open permissions, the third-party App must pass Huawei’s audit and obtain Huawei’s permission certificate before it can be obtained.
At the code level, all the codes that can be run are tested and signed, but the codes that are automatically downloaded cannot be run.
In terms of experience, only authorized applications will be displayed in application rights management, so we don’t have to face complicated authorization settings, and the interface is very simple and intuitive.
On the whole, this security is full.
V. Dialogue with Huawei executives, many technical details behind pure blood HarmonyOS were announced for the first time
After experiencing the new version of Pure Blood HarmonyOS, we deeply feel that Huawei is ready to become the fourth vendor in the world to do a good job in operating system ecology after Apple, Google and Microsoft. It is completely independent and walks out of its own "Star River Road".
In fact, behind such achievements, we have unimaginable investment. In the in-depth communication with Huawei, we have further learned many R&D details.
In the words of Huawei executives, the research and development of HarmonyOS operating system is continuous and advanced.Its workload is comparable to "two bombs and one satellite". Huawei needs to completely recreate a new system by means of system engineering. It took Huawei 10 years and invested 20,000 people to make this happen.
HarmonyOS operating system vertically integrates software, hardware, chip and cloud, which realizes the efficient parallel of end-cloud collaboration and the smooth experience of single device. Most importantly,This is a truly autonomous and controllable operating system.
HarmonyOS kernel independently developed,It is more secure, flexible and smooth than the Linux kernel. At the same time, Huawei’s self-developed Star Shield security architecture has further improved privacy controllability and data security.
Distributed technologyIts application is also a major advantage of HarmonyOS. Huawei is the first manufacturer in the industry to introduce distributed technology to smart terminals.
In addition, the characteristics of HarmonyOS’s one-time development and multi-terminal deployment have greatly facilitated the developers, unified the application ecology of various devices and realized the whole scene collaboration.
With regard to the performance improvement brought by HarmonyOS, it is said that with the blessing of HarmonyOS,The performance of the whole machine can be improved by 30%,It is equivalent to two generations of chip performance improvement, while the energy efficiency is reduced by 10%-20%. In the long run, Huawei hopes to improve its performance by 20%-30% every year.
Huawei reconstructed the six modules of the Ark engine.Including graphics, memory, scheduling, multimedia, Web, etc. For example, with the help of the multimedia engine, the clarity of the photos taken by Xiaohongshu has increased to 1.6 times; With the blessing of the Web engine, JD.COM Taobao and other apps can achieve 30% search acceleration.
In terms of AI, Huawei put forward the concept of "native intelligence".It mainly contains three meanings:
1. sink the AI capability into the operating system and fully AI the controls of the operating system;
2. Summarize the capabilities of AI into nine capabilities, realize comprehensive AI control and AI control, and open it to three-party applications;
3. Make the system in an ecological way. HarmonyOS not only supports its own Pangu big model, but also cooperates with the big models of the three parties. It is a completely open system. Huawei’s focus is to be a small art agent;
According to the relevant person in charge of Huawei, Xiaoyi’s ability has been well improved based on the Pangu model.More than 90% of the reasoning planning can achieve "one hundred shots and one hundred hits", and at the same time, Xiaoyi has the enhancement of trillions of tokens knowledge.The ability to support the distribution of more than 300 services of native intelligence.
At present, Huawei’s idea of doing AI mobile phones is the same as that of Samsung and Glory, and it is more open than Apple’s closed ecology.
Throughout the years that HarmonyOS has gone through, Huawei has its own clear views on the development of HarmonyOS.
In Huawei’s view, native HarmonyOS has three major battles:
1, the battle of the base, the technical base is basically mature;
2. The battle of experience, the five primary basic experiences in HarmonyOS;
3. In the battle of ecology, HarmonyOS’s ecology can be used well;
Today, HarmonyOS has undoubtedly reached the third stage.
Standing today, it is not only exciting to look back on the Xinlu journey that Huawei HarmonyOS has traveled since 2019:
On August 9, 2019, Huawei’s HarmonyOS operating system was officially launched.In 2015, HarmonyOS was forced to go to the front desk under the background of Sino-US trade friction period and "Android supply cut off". At that time, Huawei had been exploring the operating system for 10 years, with a team of 4,000 to 5,000 people.
▲ Wisdom will become HDC in 2019.
On September 10th, 2020, Huawei HarmonyOS 2.0 was released.The R&D team of Songhu R&D Base is close to 20,000 people. Yu Chengdong announced that mobile phones will fully support HarmonyOS 2.0 in 2021, and a Huawei classic theme song "Dream it Possible" ignited everyone’s enthusiasm.
▲ Wisdom will become HDC in 2020.
On October 22nd, 2021, HarmonyOS 3.0 came.In the past three years, Huawei has invested more than 50 billion yuan in ecological construction in HarmonyOS, and the number of ecological equipment in HarmonyOS has exceeded 150 million.
▲ Wisdom will become HDC in 2021.
On August 4th, 2023, HarmonyOS 4.0 arrived as scheduled.Xiaoyi Assistant became the first intelligent assistant in China who was formally integrated into the AI big model capability, and the generative AI began to bless HarmonyOS.
▲ Wisdom will become HDC in 2023.
This year, Huawei’s share in the domestic high-end smart phone market has returned to the second place, and the number of ecological devices in HarmonyOS has exceeded 700 million, and the number of developers in HarmonyOS has exceeded 2.2 million.
On January 18th, 2024, Huawei launched the sailing ceremony of HarmonyOS Ecological Dry Sail in Shenzhen, and officially announced the "pure blood version" of HarmonyOS operating system-Harmony OS Next.And opened the developer preview application. The operating system kernel developed by China people has finally arrived.
From September, 2023, the native application in HarmonyOS was fully launched to June, 2024, Huawei officially launched the Beta of NEXT in HarmonyOS, and the native application in HarmonyOS entered a full-scale sprint stage.
▲ In June 2024, Huawei officially launched the Beta of HarmonyOS NEXT.
Facing the future, Huawei HarmonyOS is still accelerating its growth.
Conclusion: Huawei’s pure blood HarmonyOS has landed, and the ecological battle continues.
From performance, AI, safety to applied ecology, the experience of pure blood HarmonyOS can be said to be remarkable, and the growth of HarmonyOS’s ecology has also entered the fast lane.
From not being optimistic five years ago to now, the application ecology is gradually improving, from "spare tire" to "turning positive" and then becoming the main force. What seems to come naturally is actually the support of many underlying technological innovations of Huawei and the support of the entire industrial chain and consumers.
Previously, it has become a very glorious thing for major head applications to support native HarmonyOS. Domestic independent technological innovation needs such industry synergy. It can be predicted that with the further improvement of HarmonyOS’s application ecology in the future, there will be more room for imagination for Huawei’s experience improvement in HarmonyOS.
Facing the battle of AI terminals in the future, HarmonyOS will surely become a powerful trump card for Huawei’s "soft and hard core cloud" collaborative integration.