Huawei’s HarmonyOS 2.0 beta is based on Android?

Huawei officially announced the release of its homegrown HarmonyOS 2.0 beta last week to support smartphones following its debut on the smart TV last year. Only a couple of days after, a developer found the company’s operating system has the Android running in its core.

The Chinese tech giant has been producing non-Google Android devices for over a year. The phones that run on the Android operating system but can not run any app or service linked to Google. Along with its Android-based EMUI, the company also focused on its own operating system HarmonyOS to run its smartphones.

We have seen a couple of other mobile operating system came and gone while only the two Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS stay in the ring. The HarmonyOS can still be a good contender against the two operating systems. However, as claimed by a developer, the HarmonyOS is still based on Android.

XDA developers believed it and published an article on its blog. It goes like a developer made a simple “Hello World” app for an older version of Android (v4.4 KitKat). He ran the app in an emulator (left, running the recent version of Android) and in another emulator (right, running the HarmonyOS 2.0 beta).

What made the developer believe that HarmonyOS is based on Android, is the same error on both emulators. The error reads exactly the same message on both devices with the only difference of the name of the operating system.

This application is designed for the older version of Android and may not work properly. Please try to check for updates or contact the developer.

The above error is translated from the message on the left device. While the error on the right hand is also the same but instead of “Android”, it reads “Hongmeng” (also known for HarmonyOS).

Another developer tried a similar test with the Superuser (a famous Android app for basically rooting purposes) and ended up with the same error on HarmonyOS 2.0 beta.

A developer, using the ADB (Android Debug Bridge), managed to extract most of the system partitions from the virtual device (or emulator) running HarmonyOS. It tells the developer that the device contains the Android framework.

If you follow on reading the comments under the XDA article, you would know that some technical users have also pointed out the possibilities, that it doesn’t really mean that the HOS is purely based on Android.