The smartphone operating system markets has been a duopoly
for several years now. According to statistics released by Statcounter ,
Android has 74.13% of the market share and iOS is mounted by 24.79% of mobile
devices: Google and Apple together own 98.92% of the market . Put simply,
competition from California companies is essentially nil in this industry. Yet,
in that paltry 1.08% remaining, there are still realities that think they can
play an important role in the evolution of technology.
Furthermore, for some time now, more precisely following the
ban suffered by the United States of America, Huawei also seems to be
interested in putting a spoke in the wheel of the aforementioned duopoly. This
year could therefore be of fundamental importance to understand if it is really
possible to annoy the two giants of Silicon Valley.
Huawei HarmonyOS
The most concrete "threat" to the Android and iOS
empire is HarmonyOS, Huawei's operating system announced in August 2019 . The
Chinese company immediately stated that it will be an OS suitable for "all
scenarios" , so it is clear that the ultimate goal is to make it land on
smartphones as well. An ambitious project that aims to involve several types of
devices, from smartwatches to cars, creating a vast ecosystem of Huawei, in
which all the company's products "communicate" with each other
through proprietary code.
At the moment, however, we only know that the Chinese
company is working hard to develop the operating system in the shortest
possible time and is carrying out the first consumer-level tests in China. In
fact, the only HarmonyOS products announced or otherwise rumored are Honor's
Smart Screen , the Huawei Vision TV and an SUV from the car company Geely .
However, we are talking about project that are currently intended exclusively
for the Chinese market, the only type of product on which Harmony OS has really
been seen running are televisions.
Few have had the opportunity to test the operating system
first hand (strictly in the native language), but among these there is the
well-known YouTuber Linus Sebastian, who has published a video related to Honor
Smart Screen (which you can see via the player above). In short, the
development of this operating system is still in its infancy, but the Chinese
company is certainly the competitor that has the most chance of establishing
the duopoly.
On the other hand, recently the Vice President of Huawei
stated that, in his view, in 2020 HarmonyOS will become more popular than Linux
. Meanwhile, the company is trying to buy time by using the Play Store in some
smartphones and trying to convince developers to bring their applications to
AppGallery, Huawei's digital store.
KaiOS
Although not well known by the European public, KaiOS is
currently the most popular mobile operating system after Android and iOS,
thanks to its 0.35% market share. We are talking about a project that mainly
aims at emerging markets and that combines the functionality of a classic
smartphone with those of a feature phone. Based on Linux, KaiOS is a fork of B2G
OS, an operating system developed by enthusiasts that comes from the ashes of
that Firefox OS that was abandoned in 2016 by Mozilla. The main strengths of
the OS are the very low hardware requirements (only 256MB of RAM are required)
support for 4G LTE, Wi-Fi and GPS.
There is also a digital store called KaiStore, which
starting from 2019 also includes some of the most popular applications in the
world, from WhatsApp to Facebook, through Google Maps, YouTube and Google
Assistant. Put simply, it is an operating system capable of bringing an
advanced user experience, which is in some ways close to that offered by
Android, in markets where there is no money to buy the most technologically
advanced smartphones.
To give you a concrete example, one of the most famous KaiOS
devices is Nokia 8110, which in Italy has a list price of 89 euros. However,
the real focus of the operating system is on markets like Africa , where even a
$ 40 figure is deemed too high by people to buy a mobile device. Companies such
as MTN Group and Orange SA have therefore placed on the market some smartphones
with KaiOS at a price of about 20 dollars, in order to guarantee access to the
world of the Web even to those who could not have afforded it.
In short, KaiOS is not a real alternative to Android and
iOS, since it does not try to compete directly with the latter, but it is
certainly an important operating system that is making its way more and more in
low-cost phones.
Other Linux projects on smartphones
Away from the spotlight and the lights of the shops, there
are several Linux-based projects that aim, without too many pretensions, to
convince smartphone users. To date, we can say that these operating systems are
used only by the most hardcore enthusiasts, but it is worth giving them at
least a look. Well, one of the Linux-based operating systems that has been
talked about the most in recent years is Sailfish OS, distributed by Jolla and
can be installed on certain devices, such as those belonging to the Sony Xperia
range and the Gemini PDA pocket PC .
In addition, a few days ago, the launch of a smartphone that
can be purchased for just $ 150 is newscalled PinePhone. The latter has low-end
technical features, including a 5.95-inch display with HD resolution (1440 x
720 pixels), an Allwinner A64 quad-core processor operating at the maximum
frequency of 1.2 GHz, 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM and 16GB of eMMC internal memory
(expandable via microSD up to 2TB).
However, as indicated by the same manufacturer, we are
talking about a device designed exclusively for the most experienced developers
and enthusiasts. It is interesting that the PinePhone arrives without OS and
that it is possible to choose which one to install between Sailfish OS, Ubuntu
Touch by UBPorts, Plasma Mobile, LuneOS and the like. On the other hand, the
latter are the main Linux projects for mobile devices still active. Also
noteworthy is postmarketOS, which a few years ago made headlines due to its
ambitious promise to guarantee users 10 years of support. For more details, we
advise you to consult the official website of the operating system .
Who has failed in the past
Before the operating systems we mentioned, there were other
projects that tried to put a spanner in the works for Android and iOS. The most
popular attempt is Microsoft's with Windows Mobile . There is no needs to go
further, we all know how it turned out . However, there have been equally
ambitious projects that many are unaware of. We refer in particular to Firefox
OS, an operating system based on the Linux kernel developed by Mozilla, which
in 2013 had attracted the attention of fans of the smartphone market.
The OS was also used commercially in Europe on devices such
as ZTE Open and Alcatel One Touch Fire (which in our country was sold through
TIM). The Firefox OS project, however, did not have the expected response and
sales went decidedly in favor of Android and iOS devices. If you wants to know
more about the project, officially abandoned between 2015 and 2016, we
recommend you read this article by Ben Francis (in English), which explains how
the Firefox OS era was experienced by professionals.
How can we forget the BlackBerry OS / BlackBerry 10 project,
which failed to keep up with the times and eventually had to give in to
Android. Another major project that has failed to counteract the Californian
companies is that linked to Samsung's adoption of Tizen , a Linux-based
operating system also sponsored by the Linux Foundation. Although the OS has
become quite popular in markets such as that of Smart TVs , the same cannot be
said in the smartphone field.
In fact, the South Korean company made an important attempt
in 2017 trying to launch Samsung Z4, but the project never took off and today
the company's main mobile devices all use Android.
