Hongmeng 2.0 starts to be pushed, Huawei OS lands on mobile phones for the first time, the highlights and shortcomings are here

Jia Haonan Xiaoxiao sent from Aofei Temple
Quantum Bit Report | Public Account QbitAI

Soon! Huawei Hongmeng 2.0 is coming soon.

At present, Hongmeng 2.0 has been opened for public beta testing, and many Huawei users have begun to experience it.

According to Wang Chenglu, president of Huawei's consumer business software department, Huawei phones will be able to be fully upgraded to Hongmeng 2.0 system in early June this year .

Upon hearing this news, many netizens’ first reaction was: My account is gone?

Joking aside, what is the actual hands-on experience of Hongmeng 2.0?

We have collected experience from all sides, both domestic and foreign, as well as comparisons between it and Android and Apple.

Hongmeng 2.0, how is the experience?

Let’s first talk about the highlights of Hongmeng 2.0.

One of the highlights is Hongmeng's distributed system .

Zhihu @Fluorinated Naphthalene said that the 2.0.0.053 version of Hongmeng OS has three Hongmeng APPs built in, including CCTV Video , Youku and Sina News . (It is said that the APP is very small, Hongmeng CCTV Video is only 1.35MB)

Taking Youku as an example, @FluorinatedNaphthalene simply demonstrated an application method of distributed systems:

Wow, after switching to Huawei tablet, the phone automatically becomes a remote control !

In addition to the remote control, the Hongmeng system can also simultaneously display background information, exclusive celebrity perspectives, etc. on the mobile phone while playing videos on the tablet.

@Fluorinated Naphthalene said that this is not a simple screen projection, but is equivalent to handing over the application's page drawing, logic, etc. to the other device for processing, with complete functions and no delay .

The second highlight is small memory and fast startup speed .

@phorcys phorcys on Zhihu said that in terms of memory usage, Hongmeng 2.0 is several hundred megabytes less than EMUI 11 .

For the same phone, the feel after updating to Hongmeng 2.0 is better than EMUI 11, and the APP startup speed is faster (including settings/albums/mails, etc.) .

In terms of battery, @phorcys phorcys feels that Hongmeng 2.0 is "slightly stronger".

Of course, since it is still in the testing version, Huawei Hongmeng 2.0 definitely has some areas that need to be improved.

One of the complaints is that it occasionally freezes .

@phorcys phorcys also pointed out that when using the negative one screen (the function list when swiping left on the home page) , occasional lag occurs.

Judging from the cause, it should be caused by the "recommended" label, and the overall problem is not serious.

However, some foreign bloggers pointed out that the current beta version of Hongmeng 2.0 has frame freezing when loading games.

Yes, another complaint is the game freezing .

A Weibo user who owns a Mate 30 Pro pointed out that after upgrading to Hongmeng 2.0, the screen froze when playing King of Glory.

So how does it compare to Apple ?

Although the models cannot be the same and Hongmeng 2.0 is still in the testing stage, we can still compare the software opening speed.

YouTube blogger @Black MOB made a simple comparison of the fluency of iOS 14 and Hongmeng 2.0, and concluded that each has its own advantages.

In terms of game software , iOS 14 loads faster than Hongmeng.

But on Life Applications and other software such as Alipay, Hongmeng almost loads in seconds, while iOS 14 takes a long time to load:

As for Android , many users who upgraded from EMUI 11 to Hongmeng 2.0 felt smoothness the most.

This is more obvious in the gaming experience.

An anonymous user on Zhihu said that the temperature is not too high when playing Genshin Impact , and it drops quickly after exiting.

Is it really an "Android shell"?

Since the day Hongmeng was born, the argument over this issue has been much hotter than that over technology and experience.

So, is the newly released Hongmeng OS 2.0 for mobile phones an Android shell ?

First of all, on the boot screen, Hongmeng OS 2.0 no longer has the words " Powered by Android" .

But Zhihu @phorcys phorcys also observed the underlying processes, system files, etc.

The first is the system process, called com.android.shell .

/system/framework (system file source code directory) has less than 1/3 of the content compared to ordinary Android phones, most of which are Huawei libraries. Most of the common jars are gone, and the only ones with Android are hidl, test, location, and nfc.

There are a lot of libmaple xxxxx .so and phorcys phorcys under /system/lib64 (toolkit). It is speculated that they should be the runtime library of Ark.

According to what Huawei officials have said before, Hongmeng OS will still be compatible with Android applications in the early stages.

Considering compatibility issues, a large number of Android apk calling interfaces have Android paths, which is inevitable.

Therefore, whether only the file name contains "android" or the entire file is moved is currently unknown to the outside world and can only be verified through source code.

At present, we can see that the mobile version of Hongmeng 2.0 still retains some traces of Android, but in the core , it has gradually replaced Huawei's own achievements.

Hongmeng has been in development for 5 years. What is its significance?

According to official statements, Hongmeng began development in 2016 .

On May 16, 2019, the US government took action to "ban" Huawei.

Google acted quickly, and on May 19, it suspended some of its cooperation with Huawei, including the transfer of hardware, software and technical services.

On May 20, Huawei responded immediately: Huawei has the ability to continue to develop and use the Android ecosystem. In the future, Huawei will continue to build a safe and sustainable full-scenario smart ecosystem to provide better services to users.

This was the first time that the official mentioned the full-scenario smart ecosystem, which also confirmed the microkernel, full-scenario, distributed, and cross-terminal characteristics of the Hongmeng system.

On May 24, 2019, someone found on the website of the Trademark Office of the State Intellectual Property Office that Huawei had applied for the " Huawei Hongmeng " trademark.

It is hard to say that the US sanctions did not speed up the process when Hongmeng OS was first unveiled in 2019. However, at that time, Hongmeng OS was only in name but not in reality, and many public opinions questioned whether it was just for show.

It wasn't until 2020 that HarmonyOS 2.0 was released, and it is now available on mobile phones.

What is the point of Huawei spending huge efforts and even facing a lot of ridicule and doubts to develop Hongmeng?

Zhihu user @郭奕 gave an interpretation from three aspects: short, medium and long term.

The most direct value in the short term is that this is China's most promising and likely to succeed attempt and effort to break the Western monopoly in the field of operating systems.

In the medium term , through the Hongmeng system, China will be able to build an independent ecosystem in the information industry. This ecosystem will support the prosperity and development of various software applications in China, and will also nourish the development of China's semiconductor hardware.

In the long run , the Hongmeng system will not only debut in mobile phones, but the IoT ecosystem where everything is connected will be its real use case.

Therefore, no matter how much Android Hongmeng still retains at this stage, it is undeniable that the PPT of that year is gradually becoming a reality.

Zhihu authorized answer:
Zhihu @phorcys phorcys: https://www.zhihu.com/question/456976153/answer/1873760059 Zhihu
@Fluorinated Chloro-Naphthalene: https://www.zhihu.com/question/456976153/answer/1863324571 Zhihu @Guo
Yi: https://www.zhihu.com/question/456976153/answer/1873869237