With the on-going trade war between the US and China, Google has pulled Huawei’s Android license, putting a dent into the Chinese smartphone maker. According to a Google spokesperson, the company is complying with the order from US Commerce Department to put Huawei on the ‘Entity List’ – a list of companies unable to buy technologies from US companies without the approval of the government.
The Google Play and the security protections from Google Play Protect will still function on the existing Huawei devices. While the existing Huawei phones won’t be impacted immediately impacted by the Google’s decision, but future updates for those phones and on the new phones will be out on a limb.
Huawei can now only use Android Open Source Project (AOSP) which will disconnect Huawei from few meaningful Google apps and services that consumers outside of China use on Android devices. The cutting off of Huawei’s Android licence will now make the company to self-push the security updates for Android only when they’re made available in AOSP.
Huawei has been under critical pressure from President Donald Trump and the US government claiming that its equipment could be used by the Chinese government to spy on American networks.
In March, Huawei was reportedly working on its own operating system in order to address the ban from Google.
Soon after suspension of Android licence from Google, three US tech giants Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom have also joined the motion informing their employees ‘to not supply Huawei anything till further notice.’
Another US tech giant Microsoft has not yet commented officially whether it will be blocking access to the Windows operating system for Huawei laptops in support of the US government.
