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.

Comments

My number one feature in an Android phone...

[JMZero]

..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.

how??

[lkcl]

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.

Re:how??

[swillden]

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".

No, the open code can't be taken away, but it is possible for Google to place additional constraints on manufacturers. Look at any slashdot topic that references the Android fragmentation and update problems, and you'll see a lot of calls for Google to tighten the screws and demand that manufacturers do things in a particular way.

However, the mechanism by which Google might "tighten the screws" is really completely unrelated to the sort of thing Huawei is described as doing here. Google's control is derived from access to the Google Apps (which is relatively minor; there are decent alternatives to all of them) and access to the Google Play Store. The Play Store is a valuable because of network effects. That's where all of the apps are, so that's where people get apps, so that's where all of the apps are. Google's work on making media available through the Play store also helps a bit.

So... an OEM who is preparing to go it alone needs to target building a replacement for Play, not mucking around with icon shapes. This could be done. In fact, the really obvious first step is to approach Amazon and discuss a deal to get access to their app store and media library. Their app store is a lot smaller than Google's, but if two or three major OEMs joined Amazon that could change in a hurry.

Of course, Google is perfectly well aware of just how easy it would be for a big player to remove itself from the Android ecosystem. Not trivial, but totally feasible.

(Disclosure/disclaimer: I work for Google, on Android, but the above is my own thoughts and opinions, which may not bear any resemblance at all to official company positions. Google pays me to write code, not to speak for them. In fact, policy discourages people like me from making posts like this one -- but recognizes that some of us will anyway.)

Re:What if??

[MightyMartian]

No, as others point out, this will almost inevitably be a variant of Android. With Blackberry clearly approaching the stage of abandoning its BB OS, and Windows Phone going nowhere, there are only going to be two mobile OSs for the foreseeable future; iOS and various shades of Android.

Upgrades, fragmentation with Google Play Services

[raymorris]

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.

Re:Rebranded android

[Dr_Barnowl]

If they've hired ex-Nokia employees, it might be a descendant of Maemo.

Re:So... they are making a feature phone?

[geoskd]

I don't give a shit about the milions of apps on the different app stores. You don't need a rich ecosystem of apps, you need a small number of useful apps.

You need the whole gamut, because one persons useful apps are another persons garbage. Just because you have no desire to use any of the other umpteen million apps doesn't mean that other people don't want them. Blackberry had the same opinion of the cornucopia of "useless apps" that you do, and their products represented that market viewpoint. The market taught Blackberry otherwise, and it damn near killed the company learning the lesson.

In short, the data just doesn't support your argument

Re:Upgrades, fragmentation with Google Play Servic

[kqs]

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?

Re:Huawei is crap

[CyDharttha]

https://www.google.com/nexus/6...

Nope, not crap.

Re:So... they are making a feature phone?

[PCM2]

Oh, all the app stores are swimming in garbage, that's for sure. But I just pulled out my phone and counted and I have no less than 54 apps on there that I've installed post-purchase, and I don't even consider myself a "phone guy."

I have apps for information (The Economist, dictionary, Wikipedia, ereader), travel (airline apps, bus and train schedules, Expedia), banking (including credit cards), movies (Netflix, Fandango), productivity (Microsoft Office suite), two-factor authentication, remote controls for consumer electronics, a couple games, and so on.

I don't think I'm particularly uncommon in that regard. Over time I just accumulated all those apps. I don't use any of them every day, but I use all of them at one time or another.

On Tizen (or Jolla, or BlackBerry) I wouldn't have that "problem."