There have now been three days of feverish speculation as to whether Huawei will find a workaround for users to overcome the lack of Google software and services on its new flagship Mate 30 smartphones. Google’s core services and software, including Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps, cannot be made available unless its core Play Services are also installed.
The company’s smartphone boss had suggested a complex workaround, enabling users to unlock access to the very core of its phones, installing Google core services at a system level—creating excitement in the technical community. But now it seems that he was wrong: Huawei has confirmed this will not happen, after all. Unless and until there is a lifting of the U.S. blacklist, its users will seemingly just have to go without.
So, put simply, Huawei’s smartphone boss said the company would make a change to enable a complex install process for Google services onto its Mate 30 devices, and then the company reached out to say, actually, that’s not the case at all. Not good.
Most U.S. apps—even the likes of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram—will be available to install on the Mate 30 from other app stores. But not Google’s core services and software. Huawei has already confirmed they will not ship with the Mate 30 devices. To after-market install those services would mean users unlocking the bootloader on their devices.
Despite outlawing the practice for security reasons some time ago, there had been speculation the company would enable bootloader unlocking. Android Authority
reported consumer boss Richard Yu saying “we limited it because we wanted to guarantee more security for consumers. But this time we will leave more freedom for the consumers so they can do more customization by themselves. So we are planning to let consumers do that.”
Essentially, Huawei’s consumer boss had told the media the process would be enabled, substantiating his previous comments that there would be “workarounds.”
But alas this will not be the case. As I suggested, this would be too complex and risky for the vast majority of Huawei’s users, and it would put Google in a difficult position with the U.S. government if it was seen to be accommodating a workaround. In an update to its story, Android Authority has now
reported that a Huawei spokesperson had reached out clarify that, despite Yu’s comments, the company has “no plans to unlock the bootloader on Mate 30 devices.”
In reality, millions of users were never likely to “root” their devices and customize their ROMs in any case, not with its inherent effort and, worse, security risks. But some more technical users would do exactly that, and on balance this was seen as a poor idea on a number of fronts.
In the meantime, and as I’ve said before, there is maybe a learning in this for Yu himself. The consumer boss claimed a new “faster than Android” OS would be available soon after the blacklist came into effect. As it transpired, though, we were given HarmonyOS which isn’t a replacement for Android on smartphones at all. And then, when Google dropped its support for the Mate 30, Yu told us that the phones would be unlocked as a workaround. Now that doesn’t seem to be the case. There’s maybe some message management required.
This doesn’t rule out some other option being found, but it is hard to see how the company can workaround the lack of Google Mobile Services on its devices without such a move. “How this choice will impact those wanting to sideload Google Play Services,” Android Authority commented, “is as yet unknown and we don’t yet know if this decision may be revised in future. With no Google Play Services and no Google apps out of the box, the Mate 30 series has a pretty serious uphill battle on its hands in the West—Huawei declined to comment any further on the bootloader situation.”
Earlier I
reported that Huawei has taken the next steps in its moves to widen the developer ecosystem for its own variant of unlicensed Android and its emerging HarmonyOS alternative. In reality, this is the direction of travel for the company in lieu of a significant change in Washington’s stance. The prize for getting this right will be huge, but the company will shed users on the way as they likely elect to stick with the tried and tested full-fat Android they have today. Huawei will keep focused on the long game and the rest of us will watch to see what happens.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdof...ms-another-nasty-surprise-for-mate-30-buyers/
