Huawei’s Android alternative revealed in trademark filing
With US companies no longer be able to do business with Huawei, this spells a lot of trouble for the company. This is because it means that Huawei will no longer be able to access Google’s products and services, such as the Play Store, that its Android phones might need to use.
The company did previously state that they had a plan B should this ever happen, and last we heard, it might be launching this fall. There have been some references made to a “Hong Meng OS”, but in a recently discovered trademark filed with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, it might simply be known as “Ark OS”.
Huawei has yet to make any kind of official announcement, so maybe temper your expectations for now, but the timing does seem to lineup rather nicely with everything that’s been going on. Not much is known about Huawei’s alternative OS at the moment, but it was suggested that Android apps could continue to run on it.
It is possible that this operating system could still be based on Android. After all, Android is open-source which means that Huawei does not need Google’s permission to use it (they do need a license to use it with Google’s services). The downside is that Huawei would need to wait for Google to release it on AOSP which means slightly longer updates, but ultimately it would still be Android.
Digging thru Huawei patents from China. Here's one from 2017 for a UI design that looks a lot like Android but has this odd nav concept at the bottom of the screen… (there are literally no patents pointing to a new UI for "Hong Meng" OS or "Ark OS" or whatever they'll call it. pic.twitter.com/aI9E6FYKK8
— Roland Quandt (@rquandt) May 27, 2019
WinFuture.de’s Roland Quandt also shared some images of a Huawei patent filed from 2017 that seemed to hint at what could be the company’s design for their own OS. How much has changed since then is unclear, but in the meantime, you can check out our guide here to get yourself up to speed on the Huawei ban.
Source: Technave