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Huawei Is Working On Its Own Mobile OS In Case Things Sour With Google (theinformation.com)
According to a report from The Information, Huawei, the world's third largest smartphone manufacturer is working on its own mobile operating system (paywalled; alternate source). The report adds that the team that is developing this new operating system includes ex-Nokia employees. The new operating system is "meant as a contingency measure in case Google further tightens its grip on Android or stops offering it to smartphone makers." Additionally, Huawei is also putting efforts on making big changes to EMUI, its Android-based skin. From the report:According to The Information, changes could include the addition of an app drawer, redesigned icons (they're all currently iPhone-like rounded squares), and a new, "very clean, fresh" color palette. EMUI's current color scheme focuses on unusually dingy and muted colors -- grays and browns. Abigail Brody (an ex-Apple designer, which Apple hired last year) is reportedly planning to change these for brighter tones including blues and whites, and is looking to animals like jellyfish for inspiration.
Oh good, another set of flat, interest-free icons. Joy.
Let me guess ... its just re-branded android anyway, like most of the other 'write their own OS' phone manufactures.
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meant as a contingency measure in case Google further tightens its grip on Android or stops offering it to smartphone makers.
They are going to build an OS which can compete with android as a contingency? and then what sell it to Microsoft?
According to a report from The trump, trump, the world's third largest smarttrump manufacturer is working on its own mobile trump system (paytrump; alternate source). The report adds that the trump that is developing this new trump system includes ex-trump employees. The new trump system is "meant as a contingency measure in case trump further tightens its grip on trump or stops offering it to smarttrump makers." Additionally, trump is also putting efforts on making big changes to trump, its trump-based skin. From the report:
According to The trump, changes could include the addition of an app trump, redesigned trumps (they're all currently trump-like rounded squares), and a new, "very clean, fresh" color trump. trump's current color scheme focuses on unusually dingy and muted trumps -- grays and browns. trump (an ex-trump designer, which trump hired last year) is reportedly planning to change these for brighter trumps including blues and whites, and is looking to trumps like jellyfish for inspiration.
..is that they haven't added or changed a bunch of stuff. Currently I'm on an LG G3; I really appreciate how the LG apps are minimal and unobtrusive.
I don't think I'm alone.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
A mobile OS by itself isn't worth much... what makes smart phones so, well, "smart" is a rich ecosystem of apps (even if there is a lot of shovelware crap to slog through).
the source code of android, albeit under an inappropriate license which encourages closed and proprietary behaviour, into which the linux kernel is "lumped" due to ignorance, is entirely and fully available. copyright law is simple: if the source has been released under a license, it may not be retracted (unless copyright law is changed and changed retroactively). therefore there *is* no way that the code can be "yanked".
however, what *could* happen is that because companies are critically relying on google - trusting them to just keep on rolling out releases that are blindly trusted, huawei and other companies could get themselves into a situation where they have no developers, have no expertise, have no knowledge of how OSes work *at all*, in-house.
in *this* way they could potentially end up over a barrel, so it makes more sense that they are just making sure that they have the programming expertise in-house, not least so that they have people that they can trust to review the source! what amazes me is that they are in effect admitting that they didn't have this expertise in-house before.
If it ever gets released, will users actually own their own phones? Will we be able to download apps without having an account, and without being tied to an email address? Will we be able to actually use the GPS functionality without the device phoning home and telling everybody who's interested our current whereabouts? Will it be easily and safely rootable, or even rooted by default? Will it be easily configurable, so I can avoid the kinds of rank UX stupidities that are baked in to even the stock Android setup? Perhaps more importantly, will it be free of built-in backdoors, spyware, and kill switches that might be mandated by the Chinese government?
Without these things, it will hold no interest for me. And given that it will be vying for the attention of the don't-know-don't-care-just-give-me-my-shiny folks that have made Android so popular, I suspect it won't hold much interest for anyone, at least on this continent.
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Android had two problems, fragmentation because different vendors made changes to Android, and lack of updates on some devices. To improve the situation, Google started putting more of Android into the Google Play Services app, which can be updated on older devices and can't be changed by vendors. Rather than relying on OEMs and carriers to provide OS updates, Google just updates the Google Play Services app. So a lot of "Android" isn't in the open source OS anymore, it's in this critical app. That has worked fairly well. However ...
Just as it reduces the ability of OEMs to make undesirable changes to Android, it also makes them more dependent on Google. An OEM who wants to be able to fork Android can take the OS itself as open source, but they need to re-implement Google Play Services themselves.
maybe they should all pool their resources in to one open source OS like a mobile Linux distro, i hear ubuntu is making a smartphone and/or OS too maybe something along those lines, a GNU/Linux type of system would fit that job nicely
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"Abigail Brody (an ex-Apple designer, which Apple hired last year)"/em
Wait, Apple hired her last year, and she's already ex-Apple? Must be good, then.
changes could include the addition of an app drawer, redesigned icons (they're all currently iPhone-like rounded squares)
The lawyers are already salivating...
It would be really nice if someone would do something meaningful w/ all the code for PenPoint --- it was one of my favourite operating systems, and amazingly capable for its time, and interface-wise, is still nicer than pretty much anything other than the Newton OS, or NeXTstep (or maybe HP's NewWave).
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Seems to mirror the breakup of the EU (which directly benefits Imperial Russia); 'screw cooperation and openness!! I'll build my own amusement park!!'. Soon, we'll be back to the good ole days of siloed phone OS = phone manufacturer. FTW.
Why do they bother? They are a chinese company and anything they produce will automatically be crap. I would sooner trust anything that comes out of North Korea.
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Just as it reduces the ability of OEMs to make undesirable changes to Android, it also makes them more dependent on Google. An OEM who wants to be able to fork Android can take the OS itself as open source, but they need to re-implement Google Play Services themselves.
To translate:
Initially, Google let the OEMs do whatever they wanted with Android. But as the OEMs proved to be incompetent, Google has started taking away that power. So now some of them (Samsung with Tizen, now Huawei) are throwing temper tantrums and building their own systems. Of course, they've already demonstrated their competence at maintaining an OS, so this is likely to fail badly for them.
Remind me again why anyone would trust an OS from one of these OEMs?
chinese government spying os?
The pro move would be to get rid of Java and put in a reasonable execution environment.
Fixing the silo security model would be nice too.
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One problem with all of these "alternative" Linux-based phone OSes, at least so far, has been that they all rely on Android for drivers. Because most of the chipmakers keep their drivers closed and proprietary, not getting a jumpstart from Android would mean the OS can hardly run on anything. The downside is that the alt-OSes are therefore dependent on Android, and not just the open source bits.
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On my Galaxy Note 3 running Lollipop, I have Google Play Services & the Google Store (actually just about everything Google) disabled. The Google Play services are mostly crap (for example Mapquest app is way better than Google Maps) I don't want & I download apps from F-Droid (first) then Amazon.
...but I guess they think Samsung has too much control over it.
The problem is that if any smartphones is to compete with Android or iOS it's gotta be backed by a good amount of big companies. Although, at this point it's probably too late since even Microsoft has been unable to gain much marketshare despite their enormous resources.
Btw, I hate the artificial limitations that the current smartphone OS impose on users. They should give the user total freedom, they should be like PCs just smaller.
Remember this is the company that released routers and switches running Cisco's IOS. They didn't even bother to remove the the word Cisco from the code.
I guess it's their way or the Huawei... (I know I mispronounced it; comedic license.)
why bother when there is a good alt everyone forgot hp made now open source.
And if anyone is wondering why we have fragmentation, it's because of moves like this from Huawei. Android can't reign in device manufacturers, because they hold the stick "Oh yeah? We'll switch to our own OS if you do!". Google gave them the stick by making Android OSS and letting it be forked. That stick was a coaxed manufacturers to jump onto Android in the first place.
This violates Tim Cook's butthole patent.
huh huhuh huawei
The Chinese govrrnment's actions, more like.
Jolla's (company founded by ex-Nokia employees to continue their work on Maemo, and based in Finland - though it's up for debate if people really consider it part of scandinavia) Sailfish OS could fit the descriptions.
Also, its base is open-source (except for a few GUI elements), the free community edition has already been extensively ported to nearly everything that already runs Cyanogen Mod (i.e.: as long as there's a Linux kernel and drivers on it, you could run Sailfish OS (i.e.: a full blown GNU/Linux with Wayland and QtQuick/QML-based desktop) instead of Android (Linux kernel, but a weird special userland) )
and that includes several Huawei smartphones.
It might also simply be Huawei's Swedish branch. (But if they are ex-Nokian, chances are high they'll try to use the Mer core to build this. The same opensource core on which Sailfish OS is built too).
Notice also that Samsung's Tizen is also a very close cousin to Mer/Sailfish OS. It also stems from the same collaboration effort back between Meamo/Meago/Mobilin (but Intel eventually decided to follow their own path).
Note that there are solution to run Android application on all of the above. (e.g.: the Commercial version of Jolla's Seilfish OS comes with AlienDalvik. SFDroid is a solution for the community Edition. Etc.)
If they play their game correctly, the smartphone manufacturer looking for an alternative to Google would be able to come each with their own completely different UI, but having enough common core component (Mer, Tizen, etc.) to have inter-operable apps, and still be able to also run the de-facto standard Android apps.
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And if folk don't try to write new os's,if only to keep their hands in on how to do it,then we are all stuffed,it means their will be no alternative to the mess that is android in the foreseeable future.
Pity that me couldn't be bothered to keep Winmo 6.5 going,if only as a very limited but updated version,if you needed battery life Winmo 6.5 was turbine to go for.
I still reckon that a lot of androids problems come from its radios stack being so bad still,I presume to avoid paying (more) licences to ms,Google had to write their own stack.
I still find it funny that the one firm that tried to kill android,invested nothing in it,has released no phones with it on,is still the most profitable one except for Google itself.
is it still $15 dollars per device that ms get from various licences ?
The company that does not update its OS to today's standards complains when Google gives them a little shit.
I own a Huawei Ascend P7 L-10. Once a flagship phone 2 years ago... it is still running Android 4.4.2. Never an update.
A week before Google came out scolding cell manufactures for not updating the OSs shipped with their phones I bought a Google Nexus 5x. I'm not defending Google. But Huawei has dropped the ball like many manufacturers.