The market for smartphone operating systems 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 Californian companies is essentially zero in this sector. Yet, in that paltry 1.08% remaining, there are still realities that think they can play an important role in the evolution of technology.
In addition, for some time now, more precisely following the ban suffered by the United States of America, Huawei also seems to be interested in putting the wheels in 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 empire of Android and iOS is HarmonyOS, Huawei's operating system announced in August 2019. The Chinese company has immediately declared that it will be an OS suitable for "all scenarios", therefore it is clear that the ultimate goal is to make it land also on smartphones. An ambitious project that aims to involve several types of devices, from smartwatches to cars, creating a vast Huawei ecosystem, in which all the company's products "dialogue" 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 time possible and is performing the first consumer tests in China. In fact, the only HarmonyOS products announced or rumored in any case are Honor's Smart Screens, the Huawei Vision TV and an SUV from the car manufacturer Geely. However, we are talking about projects that are currently intended exclusively for the Chinese market, the only type of product on which Harmony OS has really been seen to run are televisions.
Few have had the opportunity to test the operating system by hand (strictly in the mother tongue), but among these is the well-known YouTuber Linus Sebastian, who has published a video related to Honor Smart Screen (which you can see through the player above). In short, the development of this operating system is still in its infancy, but the Chinese company is definitely the competitor who has the most possibilities to establish the duopoly.
On the other hand, Huawei's Vice President recently said that, in his view, in 2020 HarmonyOS will become more popular than Linux. In the meantime, the company is trying to buy time, using the Play Store on some smartphones and trying to convince the developers to bring their applications to AppGallery, Huawei's digital store.
KAIOS
Although not widely known by the European public, KaiOS is currently the most popular operating system for mobile devices after Android and iOS, thanks to its 0.35% market share. We are talking about a project that mainly aims at emerging markets and which 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 was born 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, via Google Maps, YouTube and Google Assistant. Put simply, it is an operating system capable of bringing an advanced user experience, which in some ways comes close to that offered by Android, in markets where there is no money to buy more 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 aimed at markets like the African one, 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 put some smartphones with KaiOS on the market at a price of about 20 dollars, in order to guarantee access to the world of the Web even to those who could not afford 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 increasingly making its way into low-cost phones.
Other Linux projects on smartphones
Far from the spotlights and shop lights, 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 hardened 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 over the past few years is Sailfish OS, distributed by Jolla It can be installed on certain devices, such as those belonging to the Sony Xperia range and the Gemini PDA pocket PC.
In addition, news of a few days ago is the launch of a smartphone that can be purchased for just $ 150 called PinePhone. The latter has low-end technical characteristics, 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 internal eMMC memory (expandable via microSD up to 2TB).
However, as indicated by the same manufacturer, we are talking about a device designed exclusively for developers and more experienced enthusiasts. Interesting that the PinePhone arrives without OS and that it is possible to choose which one to install from Sailfish OS, Ubuntu Touch by UBPorts, Plasma Mobile, LuneOS and similar. 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 had made headlines because of its ambitious promise to guarantee users 10-year 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 have been other projects that have attempted to put the wheels on Android and iOS. The most popular attempt is the one made by Microsoft with Windows Mobile. There is no need to increase the dose, we all know how it turned out. However, there have been equally ambitious projects that many don't know about. 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 via TIM). However, the Firefox OS project did not have the hoped for response and sales went decidedly in favor of Android and iOS devices. If you want 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 era of Firefox OS 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 counter Californian companies is that related toSamsung's adoption of Tizen, Linux-based operating system also sponsored by the Linux Foundation. Despite the fact that OS has become quite popular in markets such as that of Smart TVs, the same cannot certainly be said in the smartphone field.
In fact, the South Korean company made an important attempt in 2017 by trying to launch Samsung Z4, but the project never took off and today the company's main mobile devices all use Android.
