SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Luke on Tuesday May 21 2019, @04:12AM
I've never understood this obsession or need for a 'store' such as Google, Apple or M$, er, offer.
Back in the day someone would develop a program (for some reason this is now called an 'app') and people could download that and install on their machine - often direct from the developer or from multiple sources. The machines were open to several OS's and there was no lock-in to a single software vendor. The user had a choice and in general their data, under the guise of 'statistics' was not for sale.
Importantly the world continued to operate reasonably well, no-one's 'store' was 'critical' enough for the sky to fall in.
At the moment I don't have _any_ that use Android, or Apple for that matter. I do have an elderly tablet that's a Android based but it's never been near any 'store' (I have directly loaded some .apk's to it) and my three mobile telephones are extremely simple (read they're not 'smart') and I manage my way through life without feeling deprived.
If Huawei were to sell a bare telephone at a reasonable cost upon which I could install my chosen OS I'd be happy to buy one, and I'd encourage others to do the same; good on them should they take the chance to do this - in adversity there is often opportunity.
Ultimately the thing that concerns me here is that this stoush is demonstrating the degree to which political will is able to affect individual's choices - especially in countries that don't have a dog in this fight. Were Android and its 'apps' truly free and open-source this wouldn't be a thing...