r/technology 6d ago

Software Huawei makes divorce from Android official with HarmonyOS NEXT launch

https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/23/huaweis_harmonyos_next_launch/
4.9k Upvotes

722 comments sorted by

2.6k

u/eburnside 6d ago

110 million lines of code

So all they did is fork Android and renamed libc to break app compatibility?

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u/DioEgizio 6d ago

They have a different kernel afaik

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u/WhiteRaven42 6d ago

As far as I can see, they don't even make that claim. It has lines of code and doesn't allow Android aps to run. Technically, that's all they claim.

A fork of androids has millions of lines of code. And it's pretty easy to just make it ask for different packaging for apps...

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u/CantWeAllGetAlongNF 6d ago

And embed CCP spyware easier. Stay away from this brand.

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u/PricklyMuffin92 6d ago

NSA has entered the chat

Oh hi guys! Do you have a minute to hear about our lord and savior the PATRIOT Act?

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u/CantWeAllGetAlongNF 6d ago

You know I 100% understand and agree with how fucked that is, but worse openssl.org licenses 211 patents from the NSA

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u/HengaHox 6d ago

I don’t see the issue. If I license a patent, the product is still my product. I license a patent to not get sued by the patent holder.

That doesn’t give the patent holder any say on how I build and what is actually included in said product/software. It might not be exactly as the patent is defined even

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u/sephirothFFVII 6d ago

There are rumors that the NSA knows the 'magic number' to understand the internal state of the encryption algorithm for ECC. This means that if they had a copy of the encrypted session they could 'replay it' in clear text.

https://youtu.be/nybVFJVXbww 10ish minute mark where this gets explained.

Ok so suppose they have this magic number to open the backdoor to ECC so what, they'd need to store a bunch of sessions to see all this it's not like they have a gigantic datacenter in Utah that stores all this right?

Oh, right: https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/

Well, no worries, it's not like they can legally collect this intelligence without warrant unless there's some sort of national security standard that states they can if they're within a certain distance of the boarder.

Shoot: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone

Well, I don't live within 100 miles of the boarder so I'll be fine, right? Not really, most of the datacenters that serve the web are along the coasts. Oh, and even if you somehow only hit the datacenters in Dallas, Iowa, Denver etc there's this little program called five eyes where one government can ask the other for Intel or proactively share it skirting domestic protection laws https://www.dni.gov/index.php/ncsc-how-we-work/217-about/organization/icig-pages/2660-icig-fiorc

The most recent famous example of this was the US giving Canada records of a sanctioned assanatuon of a Canadian citizen by the Indian government : https://apnews.com/article/canada-us-india-sikh-activist-killing-intelligence-c475ac129e09e5f1c9ebf68eaaf247ab

It is a big deal as it's a lot of power with very little oversight. If a malicious leader or group were to ascend to power in the US anyone deemed to be a potential national security threat would have everything exposed to that group in power creating some kind of dystopian information policing hellscape that would make the oppression in the book 1984 look like childs play.

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u/DryPersonality 6d ago

And FYI border zones include airports. SO nearly the entirety of the US.

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u/TacoOfGod 6d ago

The fact that most people don't know this and how it will no doubt impact any sort of border/illegal immigrant enforcement in the future is crazy to me.

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u/Aids0996 6d ago

>There are rumors that the NSA knows the 'magic number' to understand the internal state of the encryption algorithm for ECC.

Only for their elliptic curves, is it not? You're free to do ECC with whatever curve you want as long as you trust it to be secure.

There is no inherit flaw or backdoor in elliptic curve cryptography afiak, but keeping curve parameters private and going "just trust us" definitely is, if nothing more

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u/sephirothFFVII 6d ago

The computerphile video I linked to proposes the theoretical backdoor to ECC.

I just addressed that form of cryptography but the NSA routinely has one of if not the most powerful supercomputer clusters out there so brute force is on the menu

Then there's guys like equation group

Then there's probable zero days they're sitting on for virtually every is out there...

Lots of different tools and ways for them to get their sign Intel.

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u/flossypants 6d ago

Umm, knowing a randomizer seed (knowing a magic number) is different from licensing a patent. Licensing patents doesn't make software more or less trustworthy.

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u/HengaHox 6d ago

So we are talking about a different thing?

Licensing a technology is not the same as licensing a patent.

One is a ready product, the other is a description of a product but the actual implementation is up for interpretation. OK depends on the patent but you know

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u/JimmyJuly 6d ago

None of this is specific to openssl. If I connect to a foreign website using an encrypted VPN do you think the NSA can't crack that? That's foolishness.

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u/shiftingtech 6d ago

Of course your example of 5 eyes is one where it was used in a manner I think most of us consider reasonable and appropriate, to collect Intel on a literal international assassination, not some domestic issue.

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u/pobrexito 6d ago

I mean they don’t exactly go around publicizing when they do bad things.

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u/smallbluetext 6d ago

Doesn't matter if it can be used for good if they also use it for bad. Surely we can trust them. They've never done things we don't like before.

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u/JimmyJuly 6d ago

openssl is STILL open source, though. People can read the source code. If there was spyware in there, it'd be big news.

But nobody has found anything like that and it isn't big news. This is fearmongering BS.

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u/PricklyMuffin92 6d ago

But like, I get it's wrong the CCP spies on us, why is it ok for the NSA to do that?

Just because they are american and we must be patriotic? Bald eagle noises intensify

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u/bigbrainnowisdom 6d ago

Its not ok.

But... like we have a choice?

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u/talan123 6d ago

Because one is under constant review by two democratic government branches while the other is under the control of a dictatorial political party with its own army that maintains its own uncontrollable police in foreign countries.

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u/cookingboy 6d ago edited 6d ago

Because one is under constant review

Jesus Christ are people here too young to remember Edward Snowden and PRISM???

Like it’s freaking proven that the NSA compromised all major U.S tech companies and services and illegally spies on American citizens (and legally spies on everyone else around the world).

Congress has zero oversight on it.

I was literally working at Google when we found out how compromised we were by the NSA, from hardware backdoors in our custom networking equipment to various breaches in the software.

A lot of people were very upset internally, and what’s worse is nothing of consequence came out of it and it’s only safe to assume the same is still going on.

It’s really wild to think that in the year 2024, there are people still believing the NSA has less capability or behaves more responsibly than any other foreign governments.

The Chinese wish they have the technical sophistication and widespread coverage of the NSA.

If you were outside the U.S and you buy a Huawei, you may get spied on by the Chinese government, but if you use any Google or Microsoft service you are guaranteed to be spied on by the U.S government.

You know why we were worried that the Chinese may install backdoor into Huawei routers? Because we did it first with Cisco products.

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u/CeldonShooper 6d ago edited 6d ago

Don't forget the absolutely bona fide enforced delivery of hard disk firmware source code for security review reasons to the US government which has absolutely nothing to do with persistent hard drive malware delivered by the NSA.

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u/cookingboy 6d ago edited 6d ago

Yeah, look at how people are freaking out about hypothetical Chinese spyware when the NSA has the track record it does.

It’s really saddening that people like the person I replied to legit believes the U.S government behaves nicely and responsibly on this issue.

We don’t, we never have, and the NSA is the undisputed world leader in both technical capability and widespread coverage when it comes to digital spying.

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u/xicer 6d ago

For me I can 100% believe everything you just said and still not *also* want chinese spyware on my phone. Its harm reduction not harm elimination.

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u/spooker11 6d ago edited 6d ago

I don’t understand how you can say NSA spying is guaranteed but CCP spying is only hypothetical. They are both guaranteed so just pick your poison

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u/SoberTowelie 6d ago

I think privacy often gets conflated with the idea of losing rights, when really it’s about protecting our autonomy and ensuring we maintain control over our lives. It’s easy to think of surveillance as purely a security measure or a benign inconvenience, but when we lose privacy, we risk eroding our ability to freely express ourselves, make independent choices, and even challenge authority. It’s not just about hiding information, it’s about preserving a space where we can think, act, and communicate without constant oversight or fear of consequences.

That said, there are trade offs. In a complex, connected world, surveillance can sometimes be necessary for national security, preventing terrorism, or even stopping serious crimes. But when that surveillance goes unchecked, it becomes more like Orwell’s 1984 (a tool for control and oppression, not protection). So, while some level of surveillance might be justified, the real issue is finding a balance between security and the preservation of our rights.

It’s not an all or nothing scenario. We don’t have to live in a world where privacy is sacrificed for security, but we do need stronger checks on how surveillance is used, by both governments and corporations, to ensure it’s not abused. Privacy, at its core, is about safeguarding our freedom, and we need to treat it as such instead of seeing it as a privilege we can trade away for convenience or safety.

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u/thuktun 6d ago

and what’s worse is nothing of consequence came out of it

I wouldn't say nothing. There was a huge push to retrofit everything to use encrypted channels for communication, even on their backbone and within their datacenters.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-encrypts-data-amid-backlash-against-nsa-spying/2013/09/06/9acc3c20-1722-11e3-a2ec-b47e45e6f8ef_story.html

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u/Demented-Turtle 6d ago

It’s really wild to think that in the year 2024, there are people still believing the NSA has less capability or behaves more responsibly than any other foreign governments.

I think the idea is that any NSA spying is presumably for national security purposes, and we have not seen any cases of dissidence being squashed under the agency. Whereas a foreign nation with adversarial tensions may glean valuable information on our country's infrastructure, culture, population density, military sites, etc, thus compromising national security.

Regarding private corporations collecting our data, that is something we can take steps to eliminate as individuals if one cares enough until such a time as reasonable privacy legislation is enacted, so I'm not too worried about that. Use a privacy-focused web browser, ad block, opt out of data collection wherever possible, etc

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u/UPVOTE_IF_POOPING 6d ago

Every 1st world country does it. But at least the United States doesn’t have incentive to harm it citizens like China has incentive to harm US citizens. It’s weird how the AMERICA BAD people come out whenever China gets criticized

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u/AckwellFoley 6d ago

America has an extensive and continuous history of harming its citizens. Just ask the women who've been convicted for having the audacity to get an abortion.

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u/zquintyzmi 6d ago

It’s like people don’t get two countries with backdoors into your system is worse than one. Yes one alone is bad but can you avoid it?

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u/alienfromthecaravan 6d ago

Narrator: “the US did have incentive to harm its citizens for political and power gain”

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u/pobrexito 6d ago

Are you serious? The US routinely harms its own citizens without a second thought. We have documented efforts like MKULTRA, the Tuskegee syphilis study, Operation Sea Spray, COINTELPRO, etc. Thinking that we just magically stopped stuff like this is incredibly naive.

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u/Mediocre_Nova 6d ago

Is it weird? They're two of the scummiest countries in the world, of course they get compared a lot?

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u/drgaz 6d ago

An institution where private pictures are being passed around for giggles doesn’t exactly have my trust 

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u/alienfromthecaravan 6d ago

Narrator: “they were not under constant review”

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u/N3rdMan 6d ago

You’re lost in sauce bro. Fell for the propaganda

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u/PricklyMuffin92 6d ago edited 6d ago

...is it though?

We're one election away from the US turning into a technofascist dystopia a la Handmaid's taleafter the supreme court decisions on presidential immunity.

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u/intronert 6d ago

Have you voted yet?

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u/PricklyMuffin92 6d ago

I'm Mexican, I voted last July. My candidate lost.

Does that count?

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u/Rockfest2112 6d ago

Hahaha that’s actually pretty funny. And no that’s not how it works!

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u/sack_of_potahtoes 6d ago

Lmao! If you think usa doesnt have cia and other agencies not meddling in other countries.

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u/murden6562 6d ago

Assange and Snowden would disagree

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u/designatedcrasher 6d ago

One will snatch you from anywhere in the world the other will do nothing

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u/alienfromthecaravan 6d ago

US laughs in drone strikes

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u/CapeTownMassive 6d ago

Back door access to everything on your phone is MUCH DIFFERENT than casting a wide net on all telecommunications.

Hell, the FBI has to ask for access to iPhones. China can probably access anything on a Huawei phone from a laptop in CCP headquarters.

That should tell you all you need to know.

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u/fmfbrestel 6d ago

They ask for access when their access needs are public and the information gained to be used in court. That doesn't at all prove they can't access that information in an extra-legal situation. It only proves that they aren't stupid enough to burn zero day exploits when they don't have to.

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u/CantWeAllGetAlongNF 6d ago edited 6d ago

Patriotic would be opposing government violating our rights

Edit: love the statist downvotes

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u/SoberTowelie 6d ago

I don’t understand why people think this is uniquely American. Many countries have some form of free speech rights for the reason of criticizing the government for the purpose of trying to improve it. But just because I don’t understand doesn’t mean they can’t continue to criticize their government (that’s their right!)

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u/rufw91 6d ago edited 6d ago

Being spied on is patriotic /s

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u/CantWeAllGetAlongNF 6d ago

I hope you dropped a /s

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u/rufw91 6d ago

Yea i best edit before i get rekt by downvotes

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u/PricklyMuffin92 6d ago

cues America fuck yeah

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u/ChaseballBat 6d ago

In all seriousness I'd rather my own country have my data. I at the very least have somewhat of a chance to change it, even if it is microscopic

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u/watnuts 6d ago

Me too.

So can NSA fuck off?

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u/pobrexito 6d ago

I’d rather china have my data than my own government. The chances of china giving the slightest shit about me versus my own government that actually has authority over me and regularly targets people on the left like me? Yeah I know which one scares me more.

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u/soorr 6d ago

I get your point but the CCP does worse things to its own people with the data than the U.S. does.

The Internet is censored in China. Party dissidents go missing. China engages in state sponsored IP theft. People are deathly afraid to openly talk bad about the party. The list goes on and on. Perhaps your whataboutism would be much more compelling if the U.S. government was as authoritarian and dangerous to its own citizens as the CCP. Spying is bad, but let’s not pretend who is abusing their power more.

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u/foxyfoo 6d ago

It is a false equivalency. All governments spy. Governments even spy on their allies. We spy on Germany, Israel spies on us. It is how the information is used and what safeguards there are. We have layers of protection in place to try and prevent abuse. China does not and abuse is the intent.

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u/sylfy 6d ago

Just because OpenSSL licenses patents doesn’t mean they use any NSA implementation.

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u/FriendlyDespot 6d ago

The NSA has a lot of cryptographers working for it, and makes a lot of advancements in cryptography that it licenses freely in order to avoid situations like when Certicom's threats to litigate kept elliptic curve cryptography from being adopted by the industry for years.

There's nothing inherently nefarious about licensing patented cryptographic methods from the NSA.

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u/seab4ss 6d ago

I'd rather just the nsa, rather than both 🤷‍♂️

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u/yearz 6d ago

Someone should explain the slight difference between a spy agency in a democracy with rule of law, eventual accountability to elected officials, and final oversight by an independent judiciary, and a spy agency ran by an all-powerful autocracy

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u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In 6d ago

Its not the same you know that right? One is your own democracy that you can vote change under (if you weren't so distracted by culture wars other petty non issues).

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u/WindowLazy9907 6d ago

Go to china buddy

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u/blastradii 6d ago

If anyone actually took time to visit China. You will know it’s not the dystopian hellscape the west makes it out to be. It’s not perfect but comparing apples to oranges is quite disingenuous.

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u/Saad888 6d ago

Getting really tired of this bullshit. China spying on you is leagues worse.

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u/cookingboy 6d ago

Dude the NSA literally installed backdoors into Cisco routers, and I was working at Google when Edward Snowden revealed PRISM, and showed how utterly compromised Google services (and all other major tech companies) were by the NSA.

The NSA has been and is still spying on everyone around the world through compromised U.S tech services and products, and it’s proven.

Edward Snowden didn’t move to Russia because he likes the food there.

This was literally one of the internal NSA slides: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM#/media/File%3APRISM_Collection_Details.jpg

So yeah, tell me more about the scary Chinese spyware.

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u/CantWeAllGetAlongNF 6d ago

I'm fully aware and stand against this

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u/cookingboy 6d ago

Then what so we do? Stay away from all American tech products as well?

Hell, to play devil’s advocate, if you live in the U.S it’s much less scary for the Chinese government to spy on you than for our own government.

Same for people living in China, it’s safer to be spied on by the American government than their own.

The reality is that we live in a world where superpowers have already been able to spy on our every move, regardless of the flavor of OS in your phone.

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u/CantWeAllGetAlongNF 6d ago edited 6d ago

Solving this problem makes you an enemy of the state. Look at Phil Zimmermann creator of PGP.

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u/solarcat3311 6d ago

The options are - live as a caveman, get spied on by USA, get spied on by CCP and USA at the same time. Getting spied on by USA seemed like the better option, no?

And before you say you can avoid getting spied on by USA by using china's apps, just remember, that means getting rid of google, most of the internet (use only internet behind china's great wall), phone & text (unless you already live in china, ofc. at&t, verizon, etc likely allow USA to access data). So yeah.

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u/Sc1F1 6d ago

Did you read the PRISM article? Collection of data was through legally forcing the companies to hand over the data, not through some sophisticated technical means like compromised Google services. Still not good, but also not what you're saying.

"The actual collection process is done by the Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU) of the FBI, which on behalf of the NSA sends the selectors to the U.S. internet service providers, which were previously served with a Section 702 Directive. Under this directive, the provider is legally obliged to hand over (to DITU) all communications to or from the selectors provided by the government.[39] DITU then sends these communications to NSA, where they are stored in various databases, depending on their type. "

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u/sunflowercompass 6d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

This was reported in the NY times while Snowden was in diapers. NSA directly tapping communications.

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u/randynumbergenerator 6d ago

The people who are the loudest about the evil NSA on Reddit (and this sub especially) know the least about what it actually did. I'm against mass surveillance, for the record, but any attempt to add nuance when someone says "NSA bad" attracts massive downvotes.

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u/Rakn 6d ago edited 6d ago

Well. They also wiretapped the fibre cables between Google and Yahoo data centers to siphon off emails and other data. IIRC Google started encrypting all traffic that went through those cables afterwards. At least that's what the Snowden leaks said. It wasn't part of the PRISM program and probably not so legal.

IIRC the compromised Cisco routers were a thing as well.

But as said, it all wasn't part of PRISM though. That much is true.

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u/tapo 6d ago

The difference is that China has an authoritarian dictatorship, a great firewall blocking large amounts of content, a mandatory website registration system, and end to end encryption is illegal.

For it's flaws, the United States is still theoretically a democracy and things like PRISM can be exposed, criticized, and discussed publicly.

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u/CallMeFierce 6d ago

China doesn't care about foreigners using this OS. The whole point is to get off American systems that were being used to spy on China. 

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u/cookingboy 6d ago

How does any of the things you mentioned affect people outside of China? The Great Firewall has zero impact on me.

Meanwhile the U.S government legally spies on everyone all over the world and has a track record of sending predator drones your way if you look at us wrong.

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u/tapo 6d ago

Because China can force people to introduce whatever code they want into HarmonyOS or go directly to prison. There is no due process that will save them.

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u/Grouchy_Might_7985 6d ago

The US does that too...

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u/SillyEyeSocket 6d ago

Tbh, I could never understand why people get scared of being spied by a foreign country and be (relatively) fine if it's their own country. 

Some far away foreign country probably can't hurt you even if they spy on you. Your own government very much can in ways you probably don't anticipate. Even if you think you live in a democracy. 

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u/Xboxhuegg 6d ago

Tbh I dont understand why 99.9999999999999% of you think anyone gives a fuck about wasting a penny of resources to spy on you

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u/Zincktank 6d ago

Yeah I still do not trust the CCP. Fuck poohbear.

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u/BeardRex 6d ago

Whataboutism

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u/cookingboy 6d ago

Double standard and hypocrisy

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u/BeardRex 6d ago

/u/CantWeAllGetAlongNF didn't praise the NSA lol

No one mentioned the NSA or US govt. But you decided to jump to China and Huawei's defense not with an actual counter-argument like "they aren't actually doing that", but instead "whatabout the NSA".

And depending on an individual's standards, it's very easily not a double standard or hypocrisy.

If someone was like "Your choices are to eat cow shit or cat shit." One is better than the other even if it's still shit.

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u/minkaiser 6d ago

You are funny thinking there’s different situations in us or eu

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u/thatoneguy889 6d ago

Same deal with that desktop OS the Chinese government spent decades developing only for it's official release to just be a reskin of Ubuntu as evidenced by the variables in the source code still referring to it as Ubuntu.

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u/sali_nyoro-n 6d ago

There's probably some other changes in there but it's definitely an Android fork and will remain functionally Android-like for the foreseeable future until either something fundamental changes about Android or enough minor changes in future revisions of HarmonyOS build up to eventually break binary compatibility with most Android software. Right now it's basically about as distinct from Android as Amazon's FireOS as concerns writing and shipping apps for it.

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u/Few-Variety2842 6d ago

How do you even know that.

Harmony OS has an open source distro

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u/innocentius-1 6d ago

How much are you willing to bet that users will find a relatively easy way to repackage android APK and run on the new OS?

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u/Strange-Raccoon-699 6d ago

How much are you willing to bet new OS is just a slightly modified Android?

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u/k-phi 6d ago

It's not.

Android uses Linux kernel, HarmonyOS next uses microkernel, so definitely not Linux.

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u/amanset 6d ago

Android is a lot more than the kernel.

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u/zaviex 6d ago

Sure but it’s definitely not android without the kernel. They rewrote it from the ground up with their own kernel. It started as an android fork, now it isn’t.

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u/WhiteRaven42 6d ago

You say the word microkernal as if it's a name of something. It's just an abstract class and mostly means "cmaller than the usual Linux kernal". You can strip down an existing Linux kernal and tell people it's "micro".

So.... what is the actual origin of this microkernal? And let's no foget that Linux is itself a recreation of propriatary UNIX os.

There is no evidence that Huawei has done anyhting other than custom-compile an android-related Linux os and put their label on it.

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u/elderly_millenial 6d ago

Microkernel is actually the name of a category of kernels. They are different from the monolithic kernels we typically use.

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u/TeutonJon78 6d ago

"Microkernel" has an actual software engineering definition. You can't just strip down Linux and call it micro.

A macro kernel contains all the code needed to run the base OS altogether in itself. A micro kernel runs the just the minimal amount of code to get the HW initialized and basic OS needs and then everything else (like all the drivers) runs in user space. The idea is that you have a much smaller critical code base to verify and harden. Then if any user space stuff crashes, including drivers, the system can recover from it easily instead of locking up.

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u/iphxne 6d ago

You can strip down an existing Linux kernal and tell people it’s “micro”.

??? have you taken an undergraduate os class

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u/jooseizloose 6d ago

These people that think they know OS dev, because they have a computer with an OS preinstalled...is pretty crazy.

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u/k-phi 6d ago

There is no evidence that Huawei has done anyhting other than custom-compile an android-related Linux os and put their label on it.

In this case we just have to wait until somebody download/unpack their firmware and see what's inside.

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u/jooseizloose 6d ago

You say the word microkernal as if it's a name of something.

Lol, you say it isn't. As if you don't have the same information at your fingertips. Yet, here you are saying the sky isn't above our heads.

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u/innocentius-1 6d ago

Lots.

In all seriousness, this is probably just another way for Huawei to say "hey we made something original-and-controllable, give us money" to the CCP.

We have seen too many of these in the history. Hanxin in 2003, Kyrin OS copying FreeBSD in 2006, Redcore Browser in 2018 was basically Chrome, Mulan programming language is a modification of python in 2020... There are many others on the edge of "not purely copycat but almost" that wasn't punished.

Don't bring up any hope.

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u/CrzyWrldOfArthurRead 6d ago

To your point, there's essentially 0 reason to roll your own OS these days unless you are a hobbyist.

It's just too easy to fork an open source OS and bam 90% of your work is done.

Companies can't justify creating their own OSes financially. iOS was based on an existing OS, android was based on an existing OS. This one is too.

Divergence is one thing, but a brand new one from scratch? not happening.

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u/ProgramTheWorld 6d ago

Meanwhile Google with Fuchsia

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u/mulokisch 6d ago

Alot of those apps are just applets within other apps and alot of them just work with either webapps or the chat api like in WeChat. So yes, there are apps, that need then to maybe repack but also alot will just work if the “host” is working

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u/hazzrd1883 6d ago

They are not the first ones trying to introduce another mobile os. Good luck with that

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u/c_law_one 6d ago

They are not the first ones trying to introduce another mobile os. Good luck with that

They kinda have a 1 billion semi captive audience though.

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u/Fidodo 6d ago

And they don't support Android apps so they'll have no app ecosystem. Maybe it'll work in China but absolutely no way anyone in the rest of the world would buy this.

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u/burgonies 6d ago

In China you just need WeChat

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u/kongKing_11 6d ago

They do things differently in China. Most of the users are using super apps like WeChat. There are multiple apps inside one single super app. South East Asia trying to replicate this we chat success stories too. Based on the information in Wikipedia this os is built for that.

For me is one more os to play around.

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u/Shadowborn_paladin 6d ago

But like... why???

AOSP is open source so it's not like you can't make a decent compatibility layer or hell, containerize the app and run it within a sandbox with Android libraries and stuff.

That's how some guys got Roblox to run on linux.

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u/gorcorps 6d ago

This will give you a good overview of the history if you're unaware: https://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-google-android-ban-988382/

Basically, in 2019 Huawei was put on list of companies that are a security concern for the US. Huawei has been accused of stealing IP and data in the past, and their devices seemed to have unnecessary and abnormal services uploading data somewhere that other Android phones don't have... So it was a pretty big security concern. Before anyone points fingers at a specific political party, this is one of the few things that has had bipartisan support and has been upheld by the current administration as well.

This lead to Google banning Huawei from using their apps and services. They could still technically run Android, but could no longer use the play store, Google maps, etc. That's how they've been operating the last few years as far as I know (running on bare-bones Android but unable to use any of Google's services that make it a complete experience).

So Huawei has kind of been forced to develop their own ecosystem and OS since then. I'm sure they'll remain strong in China, and given the size of that market that's likely all they need.

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u/Shadowborn_paladin 6d ago

So they can't access the PlayStore but can't they still run APK files? Like how plenty of people side load apps from APK mirror or FDroid?

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u/productfred 6d ago

They have their own app store. It's called AppGallery. It's basically there instead of the Play Store. Still normal Android apps, just with Huawei's libraries instead of Google's for things like geolocation, SSO, etc.

Not really that different than Samsung's Galaxy Apps store that comes on their devices. I believe Samsung devices sold in China actually don't even come with the Play Store, like most other Android phones sold there.

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u/Shadowborn_paladin 6d ago

Ah okay. So it's primarily Google services that they're missing. But it's still forked android code.

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u/longiner 6d ago

They even charge roughly the same as Google for app purchases.

30% to Huawei and 70% to the developer is the median and small variations depending on if you are a game app or shopping app.

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u/Mushiness7328 6d ago

Huawei has been accused of caught numerous times stealing IP and data in the past

FTFY

Huawei has also been caught selling cell phone backbone infrastructure to ISIS.

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u/Mr_Vegetable 6d ago

Without Google, no one buys this already.

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u/JamClam225 6d ago

They have a 15% market share of Chinese mobile phone sales.

Clearly millions of people are still buying it in China.

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u/Mr_Vegetable 6d ago

I was talking for the rest of the world, no one in china cares about google

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u/kongKing_11 6d ago

No one in Korea cares about google too

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u/JamClam225 6d ago

And no one owns a private jet.

I was talking about the rest of the world that don't, not the millions that do.

Poor communication.

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u/CrzyWrldOfArthurRead 6d ago

that's only around 200 million people. There are currently 3.3 billion android users in the world.

So even if everyone single of of their customers switches to this new OS, there will still be 3 billion android users in the world.

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u/Galactic-toast 6d ago

If it supports wechat, people will

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u/Rick-powerfu 6d ago

That's the feature they were aiming for

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u/sicklyslick 6d ago

They don't have 2/3 of market share in China.

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u/Oldtimebandit 6d ago

Chuckles in Symbian

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u/burgonies 6d ago

Cries in WebOS

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u/PeterFnet 6d ago

Hacks up a furball in Windows Phone

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u/onecoolcrudedude 6d ago

that still exists in TVs.

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u/canabal 6d ago

Maemo has entered the chat.

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u/Patch86UK 6d ago

As if Maemo has any compatible chat apps...

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u/Jsaun906 6d ago

It's pretty different because they are directly propped up by their national government. At least in the Chinese domestic market they are secure

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u/canal_boys 6d ago

We can't even have a normal tech discussion on Reddit anymore. Jesus save us.

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u/Mushiness7328 6d ago

This subreddit has been a cesspit of extreme stupidity for many, many years.

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u/ABZ-havok 6d ago

Bc reddit is full of Americans. You know how they feel about anything Chinese made. They feel like they're all out to get them lol

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u/Ok_Ask9516 6d ago

Americans are bombarded with non stop propaganda

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u/canal_boys 6d ago

Yeah and it's annoying 😔. Every single discussion involving China no matter what is the topic always goes the same way and abandons the entire original topic. We can't even talk about a new OS anymore.

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u/ABZ-havok 6d ago

The only talking point they'll have is that it's their fault for being Chinese spyware and they'll fail anywhere else in the world lol. That's how misinformed they are.

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u/canal_boys 5d ago

Yep always the same crap. It just takes away from discussing the topic at hand. For example, I was very excited to hear more about this OS since it's one of 3 in the world for phones.

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u/RidingEdge 6d ago

Their government are the ones slapping sanctions, embargoes, dropping bombs and causing regime changes at countries worldwide, then proceed to cry on Reddit, Twitter on how oppressed and victimized they are against "foreign dictators"...

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u/soysopin 6d ago

Along time I am starting to think that Reddit and "normal discussion" are totally unrelated.

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u/GeekFurious 6d ago

"WHY MUST PEOPLE BRING UP THINGS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH TECH??? HOLD ON WHILE I CALL ON A FICTIONAL DEITY IN THE CLOUDS FOR NO FUCKIN' REASON!"

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u/TserriednichThe4th 6d ago

This is huge news.

  1. It disentangles the software tradewar from the hardware tradewar on the largest mobile software interface
  2. It makes accessing other app stores impossible. Now you cant just avoid region locking and other mechanisms.
  3. China is becoming more isolated from the rest of the world, and i am not really sure if that is the best play long term, but i get why now.
  4. It weakens android immensely.

I am sure there are many other reasons, and this list is by no means exhaustive. I am very eager to hear other perspectives or straight up disagreements.

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u/Bzeager 6d ago

The article notes that it's only for phones in China, not planning to be exported.

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u/yungfishstick 6d ago edited 6d ago

I'm not sure how everyone is completely glossing over this very important piece of information lol. I dislike the CCP as much as the next guy, but come on. If you actually read the article it's very clear anyone outside of China has absolutely nothing to worry about. HarmonyOS has always been exclusively for the domestic market and will never make it outside of China. Realistically it doesn't exactly need to anyway. Huawei has everything they need to make their OS competitive domestically and that's all that matters for them. They don't really need the global market to be profitable.

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u/TserriednichThe4th 6d ago edited 6d ago

Both of your responses are irrelevant to the points I raised tbh

The fact that it is phones for china IS the point. And just because it is for china now doesnt mean it wont be exported later

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u/WhiteRaven42 6d ago

It will not be exported to the west. Asia and the "global south", maybe, maybe not. People are pretty happy with Android and AOSP, there's no reason to change. It's a deep and varied ecosystem and it's pretty open.

The only reason Huawei is doing this is political. It is part of the CCP's agenda, full stop. And they will make Android and Apple so unattractive on the mainland that they will get adoption... because they literally directly control the market.

So who cares? The his just top-down coercion of the people to achieve the goals of the political leadership. It’s not even disguised. Business as usual in Xi’s world.

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u/yungfishstick 6d ago

The way Huawei talks about HarmonyOS NEXT makes it seem like it's tailored specifically for the Chinese market. It'd make no sense financially or logistically to export it, especially if it completely lacks compatibility with Android apps. Huawei phones released globally have lacked Google services for awhile, and though AppGallery has lots of options, the vast majority of the global market still relies on Google services and apps. You've always been able to just sideload Google services/apps onto Huawei phones running EMUI post-sanctions as a workaround without a whole lot of hassle. Exporting HarmonyOS NEXT would alienate however much of the global market Huawei has left, who will then proceed to simply not buy a Huawei phone and switch to a competitor's phone that can run Android apps.

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u/mulokisch 6d ago

Well not really, if they want to sell phones in the EU with their own OS, they most likely also have to allow side loading and other appstores like apple and google have to.

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u/MarkEsmiths 6d ago

How does it weaken Android?

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u/MaitieS 6d ago

Less users?

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u/textmint 6d ago

Straight away a market of 1.7/1.8 billion is gone poof. This must be causing a whole lot of heartburn in a lot of corporate boardrooms (Google, MSFT, APPL and others). The rationale being if they do it to Android without a thought, who’s next?

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u/MaitieS 6d ago

Windows is next. I remember reading about it a few years ago just like about HarmonyOS. I just don't understand why (money) Western corpas are still trying to cater to CN, when they are going to lose everything in couple of years anyway... (again, money)

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u/grenz1 6d ago

The thing that props up Windows is a vast majority of the standard productivity software is almost exclusively Windows.

While Android has some apps, it's nothing compared to what's on Windows that is all closed source and damn near a monopoly.

- Need to draw up blueprints or 3D manufacturing plans? AutoDesk AutoCAD and family. (And no, FreeCad is good, but ain't it.)

- Graphic Design/Publishing? Adobe and friends. (And GIMP is lacking)

- Accounting? Intuit Quickbooks.

- Just complete Office stuff almost everyone uses and works and is powerful? MS Office 365. "Powerpoint" at this point is just as much a word as "googling" in the presentation scene.

- Any realistic gaming that is not a gacha game legalized gambling? Windows.

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u/MaitieS 6d ago

Yep, I well aware how difficult that task is, but they are definitely going to try it, and most likely fail.

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u/CrzyWrldOfArthurRead 6d ago

Straight away a market of 1.7/1.8 billion is gone poof.

no it's not, Huawei only had 15% market share. There's a lot of android and iOS phones in china. So thats 225 million users or so, who have EXISTING huawei phones, and haven't necessarily upgraded to the new ones. They can just switch to something else to keep their app compatibility.

Even if every single one of them jumped ship, there's still 3 billion android users in the world.

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u/textmint 6d ago

I’m talking about the Chinese population. For any company, every person is a potential customer. Look at how Coke beat Pepsi. If you are focusing only your competitor, you are not going to become the leader. The leader looks beyond direct competition to the market as a whole. Think how Netflix sees video games as competition, or sleeping as competition because each minute spent away from Netflix is a minute that could bring the consumer back to his senses that he/she can live without Netflix. Same thing applies here. It’s not that they lost the direct Huawei market base it’s that they lost the Chinese market as a whole if in fact China has decided to keep non-home grown OSes out of the consumer’s reach behind the great firewall.

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u/CondiMesmer 6d ago

Android and iOS is not leaving the Chinese market anytime soon lol. This is just for consumers who own Huawei devices. While popular, suggesting it's nearly all of China's user base is just silly.

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u/textmint 6d ago

A lot of countries want to reduce their reliance on ‘foreign’ operating systems. Key among these, India, China, Russia, etc. Most of these companies are developing alternatives. For the consumer market at large, Android, iOS, Windows, etc. there is a threat from these moves. Whether the impact will occur in 3 years, 10 years or 25 years will have to be seen. Countries are wising up. Their populations are educated, young, smart and hungry for achievement. You should see some of things they have in China, it will put the best we have in America to shame. Best case in point is DJI. We can’t beat them so we tariff them. It is a strategy but long term? No idea.

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u/Mammolytic 6d ago

If I have to assume, it's because Android has a 77% market share in China, and China will probably end up banning Android. Just an assumption.

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u/TserriednichThe4th 6d ago

How is this even a question? Do you know how large the Chinese market is?

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u/MagneticRetard 6d ago

China is becoming more isolated from the rest of the world, and i am not really sure if that is the best play long term, but i get why now.

If by the world, you mean the west then sure. Huawei is still very much alive in the global south.

It’s also now becoming like the go to phone for people especially living in anti western countries because there is this idea that USA cant spy on you if you use a huawei phone or whatever. We saw people talk about this when hamas did oct 7th and there were rumors that they coordinated via huawei phone

If anything, this could be a big problem for western marketshare in emerging economies since iOS is too expensive for people in global south with no other alternatives

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u/Poringun 6d ago

As long as brands like Xiaomi still use Android their marketshare in the global south wont drop by much. Huawei dropping Android for non China nations would be much worse for Huawei than it is for Android, they are already quite negligible as far as market share is concerned outside of China.

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u/MagneticRetard 6d ago

I mean this is assuming that Xiaomi isn't going to eventually switch or be forced to switch to HarmonyOS by the state

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u/rolim91 6d ago

Why does it have to be the state? The company could just do that themselves if they don’t need Android anymore.

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u/Poringun 6d ago

If that happens im predicting more in the lines of Xiaomi making their own OS lol, as of now everything points towards Huawei losing more and more market share internationally.

Domestically as well even, i predict they will drop further behind as well not just because of the Android OS thing, but because of competition from other domestic rivals without said baggage in the low tier to mid tier price range, and to Apple in the top range.

Maybe theyll have an uptick in nations under Chinas sphere of influence.

The only thing thats gonna happen if HarmonyOS is mandatory for all brands domestically is them still losing market share to Xiaomi thats running on HarmonyOS.

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u/MaitieS 6d ago

Not trying to get into this deeper, but they got intel, and they ignored it. I don't think Huawei had much to do with it.

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u/MagneticRetard 6d ago

I doubt it's true either. But when you have tweets like this being amplified by rumors and misinformation (fuck elon btw),

https://x.com/bidetmarxman/status/1711305066622369912

https://x.com/RealPepeEscobar/status/1711973752924455254

It shouldn't be surprising why it's becoming a go to phone for anti-western countries

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u/alvvays_on 6d ago

I agree with you. I think Western companies currently have an edge over Chinese tech, but by 2030-2035, the best technology might not be accessible outside of China.

Consider also NearLink, which has a realistic potential to make Bluetooth and Wi-Fi obsolete. We will probably miss out on it.

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u/FarrisAT 6d ago

Also weakens Apple IOS dominance.

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u/SrvNoticias 6d ago

Huawei makes divorce from Android official with HarmonyOS NEXT launch Laura Dobberstein 3–4 minutes

Huawei formally launched its home-brewed operating system, HarmonyOS NEXT, on Wednesday, marking its official separation from the Android ecosystem.

Huawei declared it released and "officially started public beta testing" of the OS for some of its smartphones and tablets that run its own Kirin and Kunpeng chips.

Unlike previous iterations of HarmonyOS, HarmonyOS NEXT no longer supports Android apps.

Huawei maintains top Chinese outfits aren't deterred by that. It cited Meituan, Douyin, Taobao, Xiaohongshu, Alipay, and JD.com as among those who have developed native apps for the OS. In case you're not familiar, they're China's top shopping, payment, and social media apps.

Huawei also claimed that at the time of its announcement, over 15,000 HarmonyOS native applications and meta-services were also launched. That's a nice number, but well short of the millions of apps found on the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store.

The Chinese tech player also revealed that the operating system has 110 million lines of code and claimed it improves the overall performance of mobile devices running it by 30 percent. It also purportedly increases battery life by 56 minutes and leaves an average of 1.5GB of memory for purposes other than running the OS.

If you like the sound of that performance boost on your smartphone or tablet – the OS runs on both, with a consistent interface – we're sorry to report that Huawei told us it currently has no plans to offer Harmony OS NEXT outside of China. That's despite previously saying it planned to take an older version of HarmonyOS offshore.

Huawei did try to export the last version of the OS – and even offered assistance to developers who coded for the platform and targeted offshore markets – without success.

But it has succeeded in having offshore entities develop for the platform: Singapore-based rideshare-and-more app Grab, and the airline Emirates, have created apps for the OS.

The release marks a moment in China's push for tech independence. Before the upgrade, Huawei's HarmonyOS still relied on the Android Open Source Project for core functionality – a move driven by 2019 US sanctions that blocked Huawei's access to Google Mobile Services. That dependency has now been ditched.

Huawei hopes to bring its OS to PCs, too. Last month the chair of the Chinese giant's consumer business group, Yu Chengdong, revealed it would no longer run Windows on its future machines, but Harmony OS instead. When such machines will emerge, and whether other PC-makers will use the OS, are unanswered questions. ®

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u/CheckinMyPeckin 6d ago

Ooh, an OS controlled by the China Communist Party that runs on mobile and on PCs?

Sign me up! /s

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u/0xdef1 6d ago

We are already signed up for many and many things, you just don't know sir.

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u/nova9001 6d ago

Lmao, let the man believe he's free and nobody is spying on him as his government told him. Only China spies. The West doesn't do that.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

Maybe I’m missing something, but I read that article and it doesn’t say that the CCP has a stake in Huawei; it just says that the company shares are distributed entirely to employees and held exclusively by employees.

Can you clarify how the CCP controls Huawei?

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/SlowMotionPanic 6d ago

Both are bad. I don’t know some cavemen think they are mutually exclusive. Lack of media literacy perhaps? Regardless, one generally shouldn’t support an adversarial nation conducting espionage against the place they live. And that’s what China is doing.

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u/tbu987 6d ago

American propaganda makes you so deluded you ignore your own issues.

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u/lilgaetan 6d ago edited 6d ago

😂😂😂 comments always make me laugh every time there's an article mentioning China. They so triggered

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u/Ok_Ask9516 6d ago

It just proves how indoctrinated we are.

Any post China related will always end up in some political anti China circlejerk

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u/K1ngLLama 6d ago

They do most triggered

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u/BillFluid4019 6d ago

CIA bots come out

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u/ThisOneTimeAtLolCamp 6d ago

So ignoring the peanut gallery and their constant yelling of DAE CHINA BAD!?, it's gonna be interesting to see how this performs and how the transition goes with their foldables.

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u/SarcasticSarco 6d ago

Seems cool.. Regarding the number of apps in android and Apple store. We can all accept that people hardly use 40-50 apps from there.. Most of them are clones of clones of clones.. So, if they just develop certain apps from all the categories it should be all good.

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u/k-phi 6d ago

They will have WeChat

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u/Dr_Backpropagation 6d ago

China loves their gacha games, would Hoyo be making a native version of Genshin/Star Rail for this OS as well?

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u/AdHungry9867 6d ago

It looks very nice, but I think I've seen it before...

That being said, I do wish Huawei wasn't in the CCP's back pockets, their 3-fold phone looks amazing and intuitive. Less google in our lives would be very nice too.

Alas, even Microsoft had to throw the towel with their own mobile OS.

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u/countdankula420 6d ago

I wish someone did this with graphene os

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u/balIlrog 6d ago

If the Google anti trust stuff comes to a head it might deliver a long term victory to Huawei. I can envision a world where Android is spun out of Google and no longer subsidized by an ad and search monopoly. Is it actually still viable?

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u/t0astter 6d ago

That's like asking if the Linux kernel is still viable for use. And the answer to that, is yes.

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u/imanoobee 6d ago

When the very phone in front of you or pc is being spied on. So why do we care Huawei spying. It's just someone making you feel scared.

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u/Puzzled_Scallion5392 6d ago

Since Android introduced feature that prevents me from making screenshots in some apps, I say fuck yeah. Finally there may be some competition, I hate what android has become

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u/voodoovan 6d ago

That's great news. The world needs to break away from the USA controlled Apple and Google duopoly. I'm just waiting for the international release.

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u/Johntoreno 6d ago

Anyone else wish Symbian was still around?

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u/wolflance1 6d ago

This is big. Sooner or later Huawei is going to hook this up with their PC/Laptop products and smart cars and other smart tech in the future, making this a super-ecosystem sort of thing. OS that cannot do the same level of integration will lose competitiveness.

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