Why BharOS has Indian developers excited and sceptical: ‘More choice is good for consumers… but it’s a long path’

Still, the idea of BharOS has other developers excited as well. It is being pitched as an indigenous alternative to Android, though it is based on the same Android Open Source Project (AOSP). However, there is a major difference: it does not come with Google Play Services pre-installed like most other Android phones. The announcement also comes at a time when critical regulatory changes are taking place, which makes alternatives like BharOS easier to build. The Competition Commission of India’s (CCI’s) ruling against Google has forced the company to make changes to the Android platform in the country, thus allowing non-compatible forks of Android like BharOS.

According to Verma, Google has “made sure that all Android devices were homogeneous,” from a software perspective. In his view, this innovation at the OS level represents a new opportunity for OEMs and his argument is that developers and smartphone manufacturers also need the choice. “There is enough cross-platform app development taking place and baseline capabilities have improved. It is becoming increasingly easier for app developers to build apps for multiple platforms thanks to several tools — some of which are being provided by big companies Microsoft. Developers want more ecosystems,” he added.

Interestingly, Verma’s company has tested its maps application ‘Mappls’ on BharOS already. He stressed that getting the Mappls app to work on BharOS was quite easy as they just had to port their Android app’s APK file (Android Application Package) to BharOS.

For now, BharOS’s Private App Store Services or ‘PASS’ only allows trusted apps from specific organisations. It is a more “curated list of apps that have been thoroughly vetted and have met certain security and privacy standards of organisations,” said the IIT-Madras press release. But questions on how BharOS improves on ‘privacy and security’– something that Google promises on its version of Android — have not yet been fully answered in detail. It should be noted that Google and Apple have long insisted that third-party app stores are not safe.

Meanwhile, IndusOS now has its own Indus App Bazaar as well, which powers Samsung’s Galaxy Store in India. Rakesh Deshmukh, Co-founder and CEO of Indus OS told indianexpress.com that they screen any app for malware, adult or banned content. “Only on successfully passing these stringent screening tests do we allow the app to go live on our store. These tests help us remove the risk of any virus, or unfiltered content and also immensely mitigate the risk of consumer data leaks,” he added.

BharOS has strong government backing. India’s Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw recently tested the OS on what looked like a Google Pixel device. Vaishnaw admitted that the challenge would be tough and that India has to be “careful, conscious, and very persistent,” in building a system like this.

This has been noticed by other developers too. “As developers, we have to follow adoption – which can come due to a huge governmental push. Since BharOS is based on Android, it will be easy for developers to transition to it. This will fundamentally change how digital distribution works in India,” Huzaifa Arab, Creative Director at Hypernova Interactive, a Bengaluru-based gaming studio told indianexpress.com.

The need for India-made apps and services

But the challenge as some argue is not just about the operating system, but rather building a local suite of applications and services from the country, that could effectively replace those from Google. That’s a hard problem to solve– which also explains why the government recently held an India Stack developer conference. DigiLocker, Aadhaar and UPI are examples of products to come out of this India Stack. One company which has built services and apps from India is Zoho, which remains one of the biggest success stories having crossed the $1-billion revenue mark in 2021.

“It is a good sign. It gives us a lot more pride in seeing more and more companies and teams coming forward and trying to build something from India. And not just for India, but potentially for the rest of the world,” Praval Singh, Vice President of Zoho Corp told indianexpress.com. But he too cautioned that building for India requires a deep dive into ‘research and development (R&D)’, which he said has been at the core of Zoho.

“This is a longer path. Anything that is R&D-focused has a long-term plan,” Singh pointed out. He also added that talent and upskilling are critical to building any service from India and that companies need to invest in talent outside of the bigger cities, an approach that Zoho has taken from the start by establishing a presence in tier two and three towns and cities.

According to Aman Verma, who is the co-founder and COO of Primebook– a laptop meant for educational purposes and built on a forked version of Android— creating these India-based services is a mammoth task. “We really believe in the vision of BharOS, but we have to build an India stack in the operating system based on AOSP,” he explained over a call.

Primebook is a laptop based on PrimeOS, a forked version of Android. (Image source: Primebook)

Verma said the goal is not to replace AOSP– which would present a different set of headaches such as ensuring compatibility with chipsets. Rather, he called AOSP a good open-source asset created by Google but stressed that it is the services that Google provides that will have to be replaced.

“The reason people are going to iOS and Android is because of the number of applications that are there. If we are able to run those applications on our OS, without a lot of work being done by the developer of those applications then the user’s problem is solved,” he said, adding that’s what they have done with PrimeOS on their laptops, which run the key education-related applications.

Of course, ensuring this with any new OS is not easy as Verma admitted. “You have to get the right skill set of people into the country and into your company to start solving those problems. Because they are not like application development and website development. It is a very critical problem to have knowledge of Android and AOSP,” PrimeBook’s co-founder said.

One advantage is also that AOSP is so well integrated with the chipset infrastructure that building a new OS on it ensures easier adoption. But getting users to move away from Google services such as Maps or GPay or even YouTube, well, that will prove to be the real hard challenge. And as Zoho’s Singh said BharOS cannot be an overnight success. One will have to wait and see the kind of adoption it gains in the coming months.