HarmonyOS is a rapidly evolving third OS not because it's better (though it is) but because it's fitter. This is what evolution means, it means adaptation to change. As the business professor Leon Megginson said, “According to Darwin’s Origin of Species… the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.” Evolutionary theory applies equally well to natural and artificial lifeforms. See the evolution of HarmonyOS on a Galapagos the size of China.

Darwin

During Trump's first regime, Huawei found itself up shit creek, listed as a hostile ‘entity’, cutting it off from US markets and cutting US companies (like Google) off from Huawei. This effectively flooded Huawei onto a technological island, albeit one the size of the Chinese mainland.

If you read Charles Darwin, however, isolation is precisely how evolution happens most rapidly and propitiously. As Chuck said, “Isolation, also, is an important element in the modification of species through natural selection.” He continued,

The importance of isolation is likewise great in preventing, after any physical change in the conditions, such as of climate, elevation of the land, &c., the immigration of better adapted organisms; and thus new places in the natural economy of the district will be left open to be filled up by the modification of the old inhabitants. Lastly, isolation will give time for a new variety to be improved at a slow rate; and this may sometimes be of much importance.

This is why Origin Of Species was written around the Galapagos and other isolated islands, you could simply see more evolution happening there, in isolation. However, many of these species are transient and don't survive first contact with an invasive species, like Europeans. For producing hardy species, Darwin noted that largeness of the isolation was important. As Chuck also said,

Although isolation is of great importance in the production of new species, on the whole I am inclined to believe that largeness of area is still more important, especially for the production of species which shall prove capable of enduring for a long period, and of spreading widely.

Now let us compare what Chuck said about natural evolution to what I will say about artificial evolution because they are, to me, same shit different day.

A Farce Of Nature

Donald Trump is a farce of nature. He makes big changes across the global economy, in spectacularly self-owning ways. In a flood of hubris, he both isolated Huawei from America and gave them an incredibly large area to evolve in by forcing American companies away from China. Huawei had been slowly getting ready for this day for years, but now they had to adapt like their lives depended on it, which is precisely how evolution likes to operate. Thus was born the hitherto mythical third operating system, HarmonyOS. But we'll get to that in a minute.

Before America cut off its knows (IP) to spite its own factories, starting a third OS was folly. How to start a third OS, especially when China had already let Android and iOS behind the Great Firewall, where the majority of the population had adopted them? The network effects of these two entrenched systems was incredibly strong and it didn't make market (re: evolutionary) sense to change it. As Paul Simon said, who am I to blow against the wind? That was, until a blowhard from New York rolled in.

Under Trump, and continued under Biden (it's one regime, ultimately), America did cut off its knows to spite its own factories. They began strangling access to Android (starting with Google Services) and disentangling their own operators from China. Thus, as Darwin said, the “economy of the district will be left open to be filled up by the modification of the old inhabitants [Huawei]. Lastly, isolation will give time for a new variety to be improved at a slow rate.” But not that slow. HarmonyOS is already quite ready. In fact, I'm using it today.

HarmonyOS

Unlike Android, which is a smartphone OS hacked into cars and watches, or macOS/iOS which are internally divergent and difficult to integrate, or Windows (11) which is now just spyware masquerading as AI nobody needs, HarmonyOS is designed from the chipset up to harmonize the OSes. It's designed to work on everything from smartphones to cars from the beginning, all of which Huawei makes. But this is not what makes it great.

As Megginson said in the full quote from above (frequently misattributed to Darwin because it's good),

According to Darwin’s Origin of Species, it is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.

Being right is not enough. You have to be in the right place, right time. Huawei had been working on its own OS for years, but a time when this could beat strong competitors was decades away. Until Trump his farcical economic (re: ecosystem) change. I use these terms interchangably because they are interchangeable. The economy is just the human term for an ecosystem of artificial beings, once you take human bias out of the definition of life. Humans/corporations, finches/smartphones, it's the same moving things, moving in the same way. Evolution of the fittest, which always improves for somebody when environmental conditions change. Witness the fitness of Huawei today.

HarmonyOS is really good, and it steps into a competitive environment where America both should be boycotted and is also throwing all its toys out of the cot. It's the perfect storm, and Huawei built the perfect arc. It's China only for now, but this is necessary for, as Chuck D said, “the production of species which shall prove capable of enduring for a long period, and of spreading widely.” Huawei was about to become the #1 smartphone manufacturer when Trump sanctioned them, and that's still the gameplan.

Understanding this—in evolutionary context—you can understand the rapid evolution of Huawei's HarmonyOS (already bigger than iOS in China), and predict its rapid spread across the globe (because everything is made in China). America tried to isolate China on an island, but missed the point that it was the biggest, richest island and that they themselves were a transient species on Turtle Island. When a farce of nature meets the productive forces of communism, this is what you get. HarmonyOS. The hitherto mythical third OS, now living and breathing in my pocket.