Author: Sun Xiaoshu
Editor: Chris
During the press conference on the evening of June 2nd, Huawei released seven hardware products at once, but what people really care about is HarmonyOS 2.0.
HarmonyOS is independently developed by Huawei based on a microkernel and utilizes a distributed architecture. The significance of HarmonyOS lies in its ability to adapt to various terminal forms, support fast connections, collaborative assistance, and resource sharing between multiple devices all based on the same system. It is an operating system tailored for the era of the Internet of Everything.
Through the demonstration of device collaboration capabilities, the ambiguous and ethereal concept of the Internet of Everything is gradually becoming a reality. The new round of collaboration between giants is also unfolding, and their future invasion of the smart car ecosystem is also of great interest.
Seizing Opportunities in the Internet of Everything
On May 16, 2019, Huawei was added to the entity list by the U.S. government. Google decided to ban GMS (Google Mobile Services, the core of the Android operating system) from being licensed to Huawei mobile phones. On August 9th of that year, Huawei released HarmonyOS 1.0.
HarmonyOS appears to be an emergency substitute for Android, but it is actually Huawei’s next-generation operating system for the Internet of Everything. It had been developed as early as 2016. Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said in an interview with Sky News in August 2019, “HarmonyOS is not designed for mobile phones, but for the Internet of Things.”
After the release of HarmonyOS 1.0, Huawei took a series of actions, including:
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In August 2019, partially open-sourcing the Ark Compiler source code;
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In January 2020, launching the HMS Core 4.0 mobile terminal cloud service;
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In September 2020, launching the HUAWEI DevEco Studio distributed application development platform;
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In December 2020, releasing HarmonyOS 2.0 Beta.
All of Huawei’s actions are aimed at optimizing the development environment, accelerating the birth and ecological construction of HarmonyOS, and embracing the era of the Internet of Everything.Google also started developing a new operating system around the same time. In August 2016, a mysterious source code posted on GitHub was exposed by the media. The code showed that Google was developing a brand new operating system called “Fuchsia” that could run across multiple platforms, including automotive entertainment systems and embedded devices.
On May 26, 2021, Petr Hosek, the technical lead of the Fuchsia OS project, announced the release of the new system based on the Zircon microkernel on Twitter, saying, “Today is a special day because we released a new operating system!”
In the beginning of the developer guide, Google describes Fuchsia as follows: Pink + Purple = Fuchsia, a new operating system. Interestingly, Pink happened to be Apple’s first microkernel operating system, while Purple was the first code name for the iPhone. It’s hard not to notice Google’s high expectations for Fuchsia, given that the iPhone started the entire mobile internet era.
In fact, as the other extreme of today’s mobile operating systems, Apple has also been working on system integration and device connectivity in recent years, and it is currently the company that has done the best job in terms of device interconnectivity.
One of the important signals released at the 2019 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) was the strengthening of the connectivity between macOS and other devices, with the iPad being able to function as a digital board for the MacBook.
At WWDC 2020, Apple integrated all of the operating systems so that one set of development code can be used across all devices.
In November 2020, Apple released its own ARM architecture chip, the M1, achieving a more thorough “hardware + system + software” integration that includes the lowest level of hardware.The technology giants on both sides of the Pacific are simultaneously increasing their efforts in system integration and device connectivity, which cannot be achieved without the mature technology and development environment of the Internet of Things.
Firstly, the ultra-low latency of 5G technology has increased the speed of data transmission, while high concurrency has solved the problem of data congestion, which previously caused network latency and even interruption in device-dense environments such as large-scale events, never to return again.
Secondly, WiFi 6 using MU-MIMO (multi-user, multiple-input, multiple-output) technology allows for more devices to connect, effectively reducing congestion and ensuring an indoor network environment for the Internet of Things. IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) will solve the problem of insufficient network address resources in IPv4.
The intelligent automotive ecology represented by autonomous driving and intelligent cockpit will expand new space and bring new IoT entry points, and small devices such as home appliances are becoming intelligent with the promotion of chip cost and size reduction.
With mature basic technology, expanding application scenarios, and a surge in application devices, what is needed is a good system that can connect everything intelligently.
Microkernel VS Monolithic Kernel
Does the interconnection of everything always require a new operating system? Can’t we use existing systems? Google has tried, but it failed.
In 2016, Google launched Android Things, attempting to connect devices using the Android system, but it was not successful, and the project will be closed on January 5, 2022.
Android cannot meet the needs of the Internet of Things because it is built on the Linux kernel, which is a monolithic kernel structure.
The operating system is the bridge connecting hardware and application software, with a core component called the kernel, which can be divided into monolithic kernel and microkernel.
Monolithic kernels, also known as single kernels, have a unified memory management system that manages all kernel services and application services. In contrast, microkernels are responsible for all kernel services and some application services, and the application services in the kernel communicate with their external counterparts.
The microkernel can be simplified as an extremely capable executive assistant, who takes charge of all businesses and schedules efficiently. In contrast, a macrokernel is like the CEO who manages all departments, such as design, R&D, engineering, software, and operations. However, as the CEO’s energy is limited, he/she needs an assistant to prioritise all items on the agenda based on their importance and urgency, and then deal with each issue one by one. An operating system serves as such an assistant.
As fewer resources are spent on communication with external application services, the macrokernel system is more efficient on PC and mobile devices. However, with the advent of the era of the Internet of Things, the advantages of the microkernel system become apparent.
First, the microkernel system offers excellent multi-tasking capabilities. Just as a person’s energy is limited, although the macrokernel system may be particularly efficient when dealing with a small number of projects, its efficiency will deteriorate significantly when the number of projects increases. Being specialised in tasks and responsible for only part of the application services, the microkernel system can cope with multiple tasks systematically, thereby avoiding conflicts.
Second, the microkernel system offers excellent scalability. As smart cars and intelligent micro-devices expand the family of smart hardware in both size and number, microkernel systems, represented by HarmonyOS, can be adapted to all hardware from 128 KB to over 4 GB. In contrast, the macrokernel Android has a minimum memory requirement of 512 MB.
Furthermore, multiple service systems can coexist under the microkernel system, meaning that multiple operating systems can run simultaneously, which is difficult to achieve in centralised macrokernel systems.
Finally, the microkernel system provides greater security. As the number of devices that are connected to the system in the era of the Internet of Things increases, so does the likelihood of service problems. The macrokernel system is, in fact, a single kernel structure, and the failure of a single service can affect the entire system. In contrast, as the microkernel system defines the boundaries of services accurately, the impact of internal bugs can be limited to a single service module, without affecting the overall stability of the kernel.
Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why Huawei and Google have chosen to re-engineer a distributed operating system based on the microkernel structure.
Smart Car EcosystemHuawei released the “1+8+N” strategy for IoT products in the 5G era in March 2019. “1” naturally refers to smartphones, while “8” includes car infotainment systems.
Huawei hopes to connect various scenarios such as mobile office, smart home, sports and health, entertainment, and smart travel through “1+8+N”. Undoubtedly, smartphones are the absolute focus of this strategy, but in recent years, smart cars have emerged unexpectedly.
Under the promotion of smart cars, automobiles are becoming the next generation of intelligent mobile terminals. The vision of automobiles as the “third space” outside of living and working is becoming clear. In the era of the Internet of Everything, the smart car ecosystem is a big fat meat, which technology giants and host factories will not ignore. However, there are not many companies that currently have the ability.
To enter the future smart car ecosystem, what cannot be avoided is the underlying operating system, because this is related to the strength of interfaces and communication capabilities, and the compatibility of underlying protocols, which directly affects the seamless collaborative experience between devices.
Seamless collaboration sounds elusive, but it is perceptible in experience. The simplest example is AirPods. The easy-to-connect experience enables AirPods’ other shortcomings to be ignored, becoming Apple’s most successful product in recent years.
Major technology giants such as Huawei, Baidu, Alibaba, Apple, and Google have the capability of underlying operating systems. As for the host factories, even the most powerful OS capability of Tesla, which autonomously develops two major operating systems of automatic driving and smart cockpit, they are both based on the Linux macro kernel, and Tesla does not have a multi-screen collaborative IoT ecosystem like Apple and Huawei.
In short, current car manufacturers do not have the initiative to integrate smart cars into an IoT ecosystem. The “powerful” giants who truly have the potential to “subdue” smart cars are those who have a mature consumer electronics ecosystem.
In addition to promoting the operating system, Huawei is also laying out the consumer electronics field. In addition to Huawei’s own products such as PCs, tablets, and smart displays, according to the HarmonyOS 2.0 launch event, smart home appliance manufacturers such as Midea, Joyoung, and Robam will also launch products with HarmonyOS 2.0.
Apple, similarly, has a consumer electronics product ecosystem including iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and HomeKit, and has already achieved compatibility between devices.
Xiaomi also has a wide range of consumer battery products and has been committed to ecological interconnection between devices. IoT is one of Xiaomi’s well-known three pillars. However, upon careful observation, it is not difficult to notice that the realization of Xiaomi’s device interconnection involves the use of various communication methods such as Bluetooth, NFC, and WiFi, but not based on a self-developed underlying operating system for unified optimization, making it difficult to achieve seamless integration.
Conclusion
The revolution brought about by the likes of Huawei and Apple still largely remains at the conceptual and imaginary stage, and will not have an immediate substantial impact on the current automotive industry.
However, the era of everything being interconnected will eventually arrive. When the smart automobile ecosystem gradually matures and seamless interconnection becomes an important part of measuring user experience, thereby affecting consumer decisions, what variables will the entrance of Huawei and Apple bring to the table?
In January 2017, the founder of Ideal Automobile, Li Xiang, posted a Weibo message: “In the new era of car manufacturing, the two scariest outsiders will be Apple and Huawei, in addition to the group of Internet or automotive industry entrepreneurs.”
A new era has arrived.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.