What is the future for Huawei users?
With Google having to stop using Huawei, the second biggest smartphone maker, as part of a US government ban, we wanted to see what the future for the current users would be.
The US Department of Commerce have added Huawei onto a list with other companies on a trading blacklist. The ban essentially stops Huawei from using Google software and apps in any of their future products. This restriction also prevents Huawei from buying components from companies in the US. However, there are special licences that can be obtained to do this. As well as Google, chipmakers such as Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx, and Broadcom have said at this point they will stop supplying Huawei with chips.
How have Huawei responded?
Although Google have announced they will stop providing technical support, Huawei responded by saying they would continue to provide security updates and services for its users. They want to ensure that their current customers still have the best user experience possible. They have also said they would ideally like to continue working with Google and Microsoft (who they use for their laptops).
What will happen to existing Huawei users?
It still isn’t fully clear what will be the future for Huawei users, but we do know a few things. Existing Huawei users will still have access to current app updates and will have security fixes. However, the next version of Android may not be available on Huawei devices, along with some apps such as YouTube, Maps, Chrome and Gmail. These apps are widely used and will cause huge problems for Huawei if they don’t have access. However Huawei have recently been developing an alternative to Android so hopefully it will be able to cover the losses of the google apps.
What are the future plans for Huawei?
They have announced that by Autumn they might be able to have their own operating system. Ideally this would be launched in China for all smartphones and laptops. The international version of the operating system could be released in the second quarter of 2020. They have claimed they will only release this if they are permanently banned from using Google. Currently they have been given a 90 day temporary period in which they are allowed to continue using the American technology for the time being.
In short it is currently unclear what the future holds for Huawei phones and their users. But what we do know is the current models will be able to be used as usual.
To see more tech news check out our blog on the new Osmo Action camera!
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