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posted by chromas on Monday May 20 2019, @05:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the Tit-for-tat dept.

The Verge has a story about the latest in the US government's war against Huawei:

Following the US crackdown on Chinese technology companies, Google has cut off Huawei’s Android license, dealing a huge blow to the besieged phonemaker. Reuters first reported the news, and The Verge subsequently confirmed Google’s suspension of business with Huawei with a source familiar with the matter.

Reached for comment, a Google spokesperson said only “We are complying with the order and reviewing the implications.” The order, in this case, appears to be the US Commerce Department’s recent decision to place Huawei on the “Entity List,” which as Reuters reports is a list of companies that are unable to buy technology from US companies without government approval.

Speaking to Reuters, a Google spokesperson confirmed that “Google Play and the security protections from Google Play Protect will continue to function on existing Huawei devices.” So while existing Huawei phones around the world won’t be immediately impacted by the decision, the future of updates for those phones as well as any new phones Huawei would produce remains in question.

Huawei is now restricted to using the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), cutting the company off from critical Google apps and services that consumers outside of China expect on Android devices. That also means Huawei will only be able to push security updates for Android once they’re made available in AOSP, assuming the company uses its own update system. It’s not clear yet how this will affect the full range of Android integrations that Huawei depends on, but we will update this story when we receive additional clarification about the impacts of Google’s decision.


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  • (Score: 2) by NateMich on Tuesday May 21 2019, @12:41AM

    by NateMich (6662) on Tuesday May 21 2019, @12:41AM (#845682)

    On the other hand, they could preinstall F-Droid, which has plenty of apps to keep the casual user occupied, is downright socialist in nature, and would help erode Google's dominion on app store purchases, giving legitimacy to an alternative that would help reduce their ad revenues related to 'free' android apps.

    Look, I like F-Droid as well and have it installed on my phone for a couple of apps that I use. But you are seriously exaggerating. Your average consumer is not going to be at all happy with running F-Droid when in fact they want all those stupid apps that are only available on the play store.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2