Huawei just finished introducing HarmonyOS and everything looks promising. From HMS core to the updated AppGallery, everything falls into place as Huawei officially unveiled and welcomed everyone to their highly anticipated in-house operating system.
Highlights and Features
HarmonyOS has a lot of new features that makes their system worth checking out.
Combination of Apps and Widgets
HarmonyOS expands the overall functionality of simple app icons and widgets by combining them and creating icons that you can tap/swipe up and see the background activity and convert into widgets if you need to.
One OS for All Devices
As existing Huawei smartphones prepare for their turn on switching to HarmonyOS. Software fragmentation is one of the leading concerns of operating systems in general. This means that some software cannot be easily implemented on other devices because of their difference in terms of hardware and software configurations. An example would be a certain GAME that can be played on DEVICE A which also shares almost the same hardware configuration with DEVICE B .. BUT .. device B is from a different brand. There are scenarios where you can play it on device A but cannot on device B due to this premise.
Harmony OS makes this possible across brands and models and configurations.
Control Everything From Your Huawei Smartphone
As Huawei envisioned HarmonyOS, the smartphone is at the center of almost everything. You can change the temperature on your air conditioning unit, monitor and adjust the air purifier. You can switch in between devices and rooms and control almost every appliance and light bulb in the house. What better way to have a unified and centralized controller other than your smartphone.With this technology, you can even lock/unlock or even start your car.
Smart devices are becoming a main part of the household. Smart coffee machines, toasters, induction cookers, vacuums, bulbs, washing machines, cars and ovens. As technology moves forward, so will smart devices.
Keeping Things "Open" For Everyone
Huawei's goal of keeping HarmonyOS open to all makes things more interesting and more versatile. This allows for more development as well as faster progress and updates not only for HarmonyOS but also for the applications, software and hardware that manufacturers and brands will produce.
Having an open system gives us a bigger ecosystem of devices as well.
Home appliances - Personal equipment - Vehicles - Machines
Everything can be possible. Can't wait to see what HarmonyOS can do more and can't wait to get my hands on it when the update arrives.
Related
http://mobilesyrup.com/2012/02/09/windows-on-arm-woa-detailed-wont-support-x86-apps/
Steven Sinofsky of the Windows 8 team has detailed, in an astounding 8600-word blog post, everything one needs to know about the upcoming Windows On ARM, or WOA, release. A developer preview is expected to be released with the x86 Consumer Preview on February 29th, and he shared some important details about the release.
Windows on ARM is going to be compatible with current ARM infrastructures (Cortex A9, A15, etc), such as chips used in iOS and Android tablets. As a result, much of the codebase is not reusable and existing Windows apps will not work, period.
The final release is to come pre-installed with a selected number of first-party applications such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote, all developed specifically for touch interfaces. All other apps will be downloaded from the upcoming Windows Store, and must be compiled to work explicitly with ARM. Think of this as the end to the “If it worked on Windows XP, it will work on Windows 8″ era.
Developers can create and release apps both for branches of Windows 8 — x86 and ARM — but they must meet the compiling requirements for both independently. Windows on ARM will also not be distributed through retail channels, nor will images be available for purchase; they will be distributed as firmware images built for specific hardware, much like different versions of Android are incompatible with one another. Sinofsky writers, “With WOA you can look forward to integrated, end-to-end products—hardware, firmware and WOA software, all built from the ground up. Over the useful lifetime of the PC, the provided software will be serviced and improved.” This means that any upgrades will be a collaboration between Microsoft and the OEM, much like we see in Android today. This has both its advantages and disadvantages, since software tailored to specific hardware tends to work better, but upgrades also take longer to be released.
A curious change, and one that will likely be embraced by existing smartphone users, will be a lack of an explicit “sleep mode.” Instead, Sinofsky explains, when the screen is off the hardware will enable a “Connected Standby” state, which lasts for weeks.
Finally, how does he defend his decision to proscribe existing Windows apps from being ported to WOA?
“If we enabled the broad porting of existing code we would fail to deliver on our commitment to longer battery life, predictable performance, and especially a reliable experience over time. The conventions used by today’s Windows apps do not necessarily provide this, whether it is background processes, polling loops, timers, system hooks, startup programs, registry changes, kernel mode code, admin rights, unsigned drivers, add-ins, or a host of other common techniques.”
This will be a smart decision in the long run, but in the short term it will mean a dearth of apps available to download or purchase. Let’s hope Windows developers see the financial potential in porting their apps to ARM; Apple has found success with its Mac App Store, and that caters to a fraction of the same market. Whether WOA will catch on in the age of the iPad is a question everyone is waiting for an answer to.
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Sources and references : This list, by Charles Hudson, was a part of a talk he gave this week at an event put on by Yetizen. Betable reposted it on their blog and we couldn’t resist re-re-posting it.
1. Fragmentation
Problem: Unlike the iPhone, there are many types of Android devices, which leads to OS fragmentation, varying screen size and resolutions, and types of hardware. This means that the user experience can vastly differ from user to user. Also, developers can drown themselves in work trying to make their game compatible with everything.
Solution: Charles suggests that you test your game on multiple devices to make sure the user experience can consistent across a sea of devices. He said that he bought old, “well loved” Android phones from resellers to cheaply test his game on each type of hardware. As for OS, if you need to draw a line in the sand and not supporting older OS versions to provide a consistent experience, then do so. According to Ngmoco, which spoke later in the evening, 94% of Android gamers are on 2.1 or above, so you won’t miss many customers by cutting out the troublesome 1.6 and 1.7 versions.
2. Development & Testing
Problem: Because it is so easy to launch new applications and versions on Android – you are essentially just one button away from pushing new versions – developers can sometimes get trigger happy. This can overwhelm users and stop them from updating your game.
Solution: Android users typically don’t update their apps as often as iOS users, so Charles recommended a minimum period of one week between app updates, excepting urgent bug fixes of course. And as we mentioned before, you should test your game on each major type of phone and supported OS version before an update goes live. This can prevent unforseen hiccups and help you avoid those urgent bug fixes.
3. Metrics
Problem: Developers are typically flying totally blind when it comes to the way that users are interacting with their app, especially on Android.
Solution: Look into integrating with an analytics platform that fits your budget. Google Analytics is free, but can be a trickier integration as it isn’t built for mobile. If you are looking for an easier and more mobile-friendly solution, there are mobile game analytics platforms that are free to try such as Flurry and Localytics.
4. Platform Wars
Problem: 23% of all smartphone customers are on iOS devices, and conventional wisdom states that iOS users are more likely to pay for apps and complete in-app purchases than their Android counterparts.
Solution: To paraphrase Charles Hudson, “it is better to build a great game on one platform instead of a mediocre game on two platforms.” Each platform has different capabilities, so focus your resources in building an awesome game on one platform before you worry about iOS. Bionic Panda is an Android only game studio, so Charles clearly practices what he preaches.
Motion tracking, environment tracking, body tracking and face tracking – while they might be basic Augmented Reality (AR) capabilities, these are the technologies that allow your app to bridge virtual world with the real world. At the core of it, what drives this brand new visually interactive user experience is the AR Engine.
Huawei has launched the HMS Core 5.0 in June last year to bring comprehensive Huawei's leading core service capabilities to developers, in return helping them elevate the user experience. One new feature is the AR Engine that offers a wide range of AR-related capabilities, giving developers the means to easily create an all-new interactive and immersive AR experiences.
The project to build the HUAWEI AR Engine began, simply enough, by considering what the next generation of consumer electronics and computing platforms might look like. It’s commonly accepted that the biggest developments in the electronics industry only occur maybe once every 10 to 15 years. Mobile phones have been around since the mid-1990s – over two decades now. Even smartphones have now been on the market for 13 years if you count from 2007 when we saw the first real breakthrough.
So, isn’t it about time we consider exactly what the next generation of technology will look like? What will be the most important new operating systems and software technology for new consumer electronics? And what will the user interaction be like with this new generation of products? It’s high time the electronics industry reflected on its changing business models, as well as changes in the habits of its users.
To answer some of these questions, Huawei tasked numerous research teams with conducting a range of comprehensive studies on the industry. After long periods of research and discussion, these teams identified AR as one of the most important new directions the electronics industry will take. After months of discussion and planning that involved even top management, Huawei engineers are now on a mission to commercialise an AR Engine.
The development team debated at great length on the potential scope of applications this new technology might have. This began with a discussion on the traditional uses of AR to date; functions like Simultaneous Location and Mapping (SLAM), light estimation, image recognition and tracking being the most notable examples. We then launched a systematic development of new algorithms, optimising performance at the system- and chip-level to improve key factors like accuracy, reliability, performance and power consumption. Finally, with the launch of the HUAWEI P20 at the 2018 Huawei Developer Conference (HDC), we were ready to release the first ever commercially available version of our new AR Engine on the HiSilicon Kirin 970.
Following that, at the launch of the HUAWEI Mate 20, we provided an in-depth showcasing of our AR 3D modelling software. Soon afterwards, new features such as the AR Lens and 3D Qmojis were successfully adopted into main product lines by both Huawei and Honor.
However, initial research returned with mixed feedback and confusion about some of these features. Established industry experts claimed that AR was yet to establish itself as a truly stand-out feature of any smartphone. Indeed, many applications of the technology were slow to take off. As an example, due to limited smartphone rendering capabilities, AR 3D modelling has struggled to guarantee the high levels of accuracy and precision that are needed to support a mobile display online in real-time. The perception of AR technology remained that it was just a “toy”, something confined to the periphery of the electronics industry, at least for the time being.
We spent a lot of time thinking about these challenges. That’s when we decided to orient Huawei’s AR 2.0 towards three digital technology areas: people, objects and the environment. Step by step, we then laid out four priority business areas, corresponding to the technology’s core capabilities, applications, ecosystem and Cloud solutions. Finally, the AR Engine 2.0 was successfully launched in 2019. This second generation helped to redefine the AR Engine as an intelligent geometric AI platform, but more clearly distinct from generic AI platforms both in terms of its construction and purpose.
The AR metrics we have created have quickly become some of our users’ favourite gadget hacks, including an AR-assisted ToF camera. In a short space of time, this tool, in particular has proven extremely popular, racking up tens of millions of users every month. The AR Lens app, combining the Huawei camera and AR Engine technology, really is great fun to use. It’s no wonder, then, that it has already accumulated over 10 million MAU (monthly active users). We’ll continue polishing these two applications to provide Huawei customers with the great user experience they expect.
In the first half of 2020, the AR Engine, having completed a number of important optimizations and quality-control checks, went live around the world with Huawei’s accelerated development of the HMS Ecosystem. Updates to the AR Engine are now at the forefront of HMS Core 5.0, which is expanding by over 20% per month, indicating an adjusted growth rate of over 100%. The Huawei AR Engine is supported on most phones and tablets using Huawei's Hisilicon Kirin 970/980/990 and Series 8/Series 7 chipsets.
Over the past three years, we have worked extensively, closely and openly with leading partners in a broad range of industries, including e-commerce, gaming, education, maps and ecosystem toolchain developers to create an improved AR ecosystem in China. We’ve also released Reality Studio to support the rapid development of new AR applications.
With complete upgrades to portraiture, lighting, SLAM and more, don’t miss the release of our AR Engine 3.0 and the much-anticipated Reality Studio at Huawei HDC 2020.
Learn more from the video:
For more details about AR Engine, please visit the official website:
https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/hms/huawei-arengine/?ha_source=hms2
Very nice upgrade of AR Engine. It's very nice.
Is Huawei M and P series news is real?
Sami Qasem
VP, Global Head of Content, Huawei CBG
In this issue, Sami Qasem shares his thoughts on how 5G will influence mobile app development moving forward.
As 5G technology slowly becomes a reality for both consumers and enterprises, it also opens up all sorts of opportunities for developers to create ground-breaking mobile apps that can leverage the technology’s enhanced capabilities. For instance, the app industry will likely see a rise in cloud-based apps as developers move the processing load off the device and instead utilise 5G speeds to transmit the data between device and server. However, because 5G is still a budding technology, it comes with its own set of unique challenges and roadblocks. As such, there are still uncertainty within the industry on how mobile developers can best prepare themselves ahead of mainstream adoption.
How will 5G impact mobile apps developers?
· How will 5G disrupt the mobile app development space in terms of innovation and consumers’ expectations?
As 5G is rolled out to more countries and cities around the world, consumers will expect an in-home WiFi experience while using their mobile networks. Users will be able to enjoy faster loading of rich media, high quality content on the go and faster browsing, but it also opens up a world of possibilities to developers.
Things we’ve only imagined in sci-fi movies could become a reality. Real-time haptic feedback between users, VR and AR won’t be limited to the home, richer 3D and 4D advertising and fewer delays over mobile networks will push developers to keep up with consumer expectations.
· What are the main verticals that will stand to enjoy the maximum benefit from 5G technology?
There are a number of industries that will benefit from 5G – location-based apps, IoT devices, healthcare, education and the self-driving automotive industry are just a few. The one I’m most excited about however, is gaming. I think we’ll see a bleeding between entertainment, gaming and eSports, as well as a rise in AR/VR Gaming. The stability and speed of 5G will allow for real-time feedback and interactions.
· What should developers’ main priority be when incorporating 5G technology into their apps?
Developers will need to innovate quickly. Consumers already expect high quality content, and once they’ll be able get this reliably outside of the home, they’ll be looking for the next big thing. This might be 5K movies on their mobile or tablets. Or the next leap in the gaming experience. Hardware will need to keep up, but so will software.
As consumers get more accustomed to their content loading faster, they’ll expect their Apps to do the same. Developers should consider making their apps as light as possible, relying on cloud technology for on-demand resources. Testing will also become extra important for developers – ensuring they guarantee a good experience for customers on both 5G and non-5G devices.
· What are some available resources which can support smaller app companies in developing app features that can take full advantage of 5G exceptional capabilities?
Developers need to be pro-active and ensure they don’t get left behind, they should consider implementing technologies that are available now, where possible. Similarly, they’ll need to ensure they’re not exclusively 5G compatible, just yet. As they consider future development they should keep an eye out for articles and technologies via AppGallery Connect, as well as wider tech blogs.
The improved connectivity offered by 5G will decrease an app's load time, making it more responsive. This will significantly improve user experience by lending higher visual clarity to the app and enhancing its performance. Developers will be able to pack in more functionalities into the mobile app while boosting UX.
There is no denying that 5G will significantly upend our ways of living. It is being coined as the catalyst for the fourth industrial revolution. While 5G could disrupt industries, it has the potential to create a multitude of new business opportunities.
Author: Martin Alvarez，Web Standards Expert at EU.SID (Standards and Industry Development) Huawei Consumer Business Group，shares his thoughts on the compatibility between Quick Apps and digital lifestyles in the 5G era.
5G is envisioned as the ultimate solution to cellular connectivity – promising multi-Gbps peak data speeds with ultra-low latency of just 1 millisecond, alongside a wealth of other improvements. As users get accustomed to these changes, it induces further changes in user expectations – such as for greater efficiency and performance in mobile apps.
However, the technology is still in infancy and imperfect – IDC warns in a whitepaper that enterprises should not fall into the trap of viewing 5G as a simple “plug and play” technology that will deliver increased mobile connectivity. Developers should leverage this transition period to explore how different technologies – such as Quick Apps – can best take advantage of what 5G can offer and adapt accordingly.
In this article, Martin Alvarez shares his thoughts on the compatibility between Quick Apps and digital lifestyles in the 5G era.
What are the major disruptions that developers will experience with 5G technology?
• As users' needs evolve to reflect the faster-paced 5G lifestyle, traditional apps will likely lose favour among mobile users due to the inherent friction in the user journey, including tedious installation and registration processes.
• Quick apps are the perfect complement in the new era due to their easy discoverability, direct access, immediate response, as well as growing capabilities that are on par with traditional native apps.
• This transition between traditional to Quick Apps is likely to meet attraction from both users and developers. Users only pay attention to the appealing and efficient product/service, rather than the underlying technology. Additionally, quick apps are based on frameworks and standards that are popular with developers.
RESILIENCE and AGILITY
As competition within the app industry intensifies, developers looking to stay competitive must be of a certain calibre. This includes being resilient as well as capable of adapting quickly to societal changes and disruptions.
More importantly, businesses and developers must possess the agility to cater to the rapidly-changing users’ demands. As a result, developers will need the support of toolkits and frameworks that are easy to maintain and help them build products swiftly. These tools will have to involve less coding, less complexity in the framework, reusable components, pluggable third-party services.
FRICTIONLESS APPS
As online services’ capabilities continue to improve and expand exponentially, it encourages consumers’ reliance on them for daily tasks. This explains why smartphone usage is at an all-time high at the moment – the devices are needed to even perform the most common day-to-day tasks, such as accessing virtual loyalty cards or viewing a restaurant’s digital menu.
In addition, mobile users only interact with a significantly small number of apps installed on their devices on a regular basis. The fact that the app discovery journey is fraught with friction and pain points further hurts traditional apps’ standing in mobile users’ eyes. On the other hand, Quick Apps are the perfect replacement in the new era due to their easy discoverability, instant access, and growing capabilities on par with traditional native apps.
QUICK RESPONSE
Each individual Quick App is designed to perform one task – this specialization allows the developers to home in on the necessary processes and guarantees maximum efficiency.
Along the same vein, consumers’ expectations will be conditioned to match that high level of speed and efficiency for all other aspects of their interaction with the apps. Thus, it is crucial for Quick App developers to ensure that users can access their services in the timeliest fashion, which will be where 5G comes in. The new generation of network technology would guarantee the provision of the service with the lowest latency while preserving the quality, privacy and security of the service.
BETTER TOOLS
This transition between traditional to Quick Apps is unlikely to meet resistance from both users and developers. Users historically only pay attention to the end product/service, rather than the underlying technology.
Additionally, Quick Apps are based on frameworks and standards – such as HTML-like components, CSS, and JavaScript – that are popular with the developer communities, encouraging a smoother adoption of the more efficient Quick Apps.