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Google suspends some business with Huawei
- dirtyid 7y agoIf true, this is certainly a nuclear move. There's a variety of first party app stores in China, though I doubt they'll see much success convincing Western users to switch. Curious if there's going to be antitrust fallout from markets outside the US for unilaterally crippling vendors at behest of US foreign policy. Is Microsoft or Apple going to pull their app stores as well? What happened to project Dragon Fly? On the other hand, I wonder how Huawei / China will retaliate. Wouldn't be surprised if this kills all Google manufacturing prospects in China which pretty much kills Google hardware.
- luckylion 7y agoI doubt that China will throw Google out. It's a bit of a reminder that Google is under US jurisdiction and there's a point to be made that, no matter what they promise you, if the US wants their data, they get their data. More competition can only be good, if this leads to the Chinese creating a third major platform, I welcome it. If they open source it, they may even have success outside of China.
- azinman2 7y agoIf you’re Chinese, having another domestic platform is a good and important thing towards self determination. Not so great if you’re American, as they’re playing for winner-takes-all.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago"is a good and important thing towards self determination" This is a lark? The only thing the CPC is interested in is total and absolute control of the citizenry. They'd love to have a platform for which they didn't have to monitor with gazillions of staff, and have police on corners to ensure 'government monitoring' is properly installed. Imagine if the CPC could ensure total thought control without all the overhead? That is exactly the objective. There's nothing stopping 1 billion people from developing a mobile platform - or any kind of platform for that matter in 2019. They can do it now. Or yesterday. And the 'whole world' could be using it. Consider for a moment why it's not happening? Why isn't the entire world using software or hosted solutions for all of our SaaS needs in India and China? Given that the existential nature of the Chinese economy is intertwined with the CPC, I don't think any good will come of this. A lot of the comments and thinking abound 'trade with China' are centered around a view that it's a normal economy, but it isn't, so the regular rules don't quite apply. In the grand grand scheme of things, Huawei is a small thing, we're seeing a realignment of forces given the new reality of China's competitive powers, irrespective of anything else. It's hard to say where the new equilibrium will land.
- luckylion 7y ago> Why isn't the entire world using software or hosted solutions for all of our SaaS needs in India and China? Because the tech has been developed in the US, and the US has lead in it ever since. > Given that the existential nature of the Chinese economy is intertwined with the CPC, I don't think any good will come of this. I mean, the article being discussed here shows that US corporations are tools of US foreign policy. Yes, it's a different style of control, but it's control nonetheless. And before the notorious flaggers run wild: I don't like the Chinese model. I don't particularly like the US model either though. I'm not judging those that profit from it for also liking it. I'm sure I would, too.
- roca 7y agoAs a non-American I'd much rather the USA has my data than China has it.
- luckylion 7y agoMaybe. I'd prefer that neither of them have my data. I do believe that competition limits the exploits. If there's an alternative, you have to fear losing your customers (and their money), so you limit what you do to them. If there isn't any, why would you? Right now, the competition is basically only Apple vs Google. Both USA, both from California. A bit more diversity would be nice.
- roca 7y agoI agree with that. I'm proud to have worked on FirefoxOS as part of an effort to create such competition! (Which is still going on with KaiOS.)
- luckylion 7y agoYeah, too bad FirefoxOS never made it too far. Unfortunately, it would still be only "kind of" competition: still US-based, still in California, still financed & owned by the same (group of) people. I'd love some real competition. Chinese, Russian, European alternatives. I would have a hard time trusting Chinese or Russian systems, maybe rightfully, maybe because decades of Propaganda have taken their toll. I'd still like to see them.
- gonvaled 7y agoNot sure why. As non-American (and non-Chinese I assume), the Chinese do not care about you, but the Americans very much do.
- stunt 7y agoNobody is good enough to own your data.
- ionised 7y agoI'd prefer neither had it. Neither can be trusted to retain a glass of water, let alone personally identifying information that can spur advertising campaigns and sway elections in countries around the world.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoI think much of that hardware is rebranded OEM anyways, which should be safe. It also isn’t clear China would blame google for this, or if its any worse than how google has pissed the Chinese government off in the past. Maybe they’ll just block google websites...wait no, they’ve done that already.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoSurely it doesn't matter if China blame Google. USA have gone after Huawei based on Huawei being Chinese, so the response of China to stop manufacturing stuff for USA companies would seem reasonable, no? Is this a "force people to buy USA manufactured goods; but blame it on the Chinese" attempt?
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoPeople used to blame Toyota for Japan actions, but that kind of sentiment lasts for 5 minutes, and anyways, those Toyotas were mostly made in China anyways. Likewise, Google has almost zero consumer exposure in China, so all they can do is interrupt their ability to give Chinese companies money for goods and services, which seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The Chinese government doesn't want the west to grow new supply chains and find new manufacturing centers just because of one trade war, it wouldn't be according to their goals.
- yding 7y agoThe biggest threat to Google in my opinion would be the possibility that Huawei and China could try to "steal" Android from them. Imagine in 2021 the Chinese government mandates that every Chinese smartphone manufacturer needs to switch to ChAndroid for all of their product lines, with a single unified app store, whether they sell the phones inside or outside of China. Well, fully half of the top smartphone companies in the world are Chinese. So all of a sudden Google would lose the ability to monetize on almost half of the ecosystem. And if it were open and successful, other Android manufacturers could move over. Samsung would LOVE the ability to get a piece of the search and app revenue on every one of their phones. Right now they're locked out because of Google's licensing agreement for Android, but they must look at how much money Google pays Apple every year to be the default search provider very longingly.
- jmull 7y ago> And if it were open... An OS mandated by the Chinese government. That’s pretty much the opposite open in multiple ways.
- yding 7y agoOpen in this case meaning open source and open to other people to modify/build upon, like Android is currently. But you're right that the Chinese bureaucracy may not be nimble enough for this kind of move, and might stillborn it by mucking it up with poor decisions.
- scarface74 7y agoEurope forced Google into a consent degree. It isn’t allow to forbid manufacturers from selling non Google versions of Android.
- yding 7y agoCorrect. So manufacturers should be allowed to sell Android and "Android-compatible" phones simultaneously, whereas before Google forced manufacturers to choose either/or. But that decision is still under appeal as far as I can tell. It also doesn't remove the technical/marketing/user hurdles of getting everyone to port their software over to new APIs, a new app store, and getting the users to get comfortable with a whole new app store and none of the Google apps they expect (like Google Maps, GMail, etc.)
- oldjokes 7y agoThe internet, at least as we knew it, is dead. What we have now is a highly segemented, highly federated, highly monitored, centralized communication network. The walls and the controls around access are getting more intricate every day, we've long ago left the idea of an open network in the trash can. It sure seems like the future is more and more walls, more and more reactionary defensive measures. Nobody seems to have any inclination to resist this trend.
- xfitm3 7y agoSeemingly more and more people want internet regulation. Nobody cares about things like free speech anymore, and actively campaign that it’s harmful.
- im3w1l 7y agoIt goes beyond freedom of speech. For instance gdpr, copyright directive, tax laws (was a story the other day about you having to comply with a lot of local tax laws - consider what happens if you are unable or unwilling to comply with 1000s of special snowflake tax rules, presumably the authority rests on blocking). These examples are not quite freedom of speech, but will lead to a breaking apart of the internet all the same.
- appleshore 7y agoOf course, that's China's goal for their 2025 project right? It seems Americans are underestimating the long-term plans and strategies of countries that deny liberal democratic principles.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago> though I doubt they'll see much success convincing Western users to switch. Are any of these stores near the quality levels that Western audiences expect? My experience with software from China was consistently bad. Even the AliExpress web site looks like a cobbled together, barely working mess that people only put up with because of the low prices of the goods you can buy there, which won't work for app stores.
- roca 7y agoI like AliExpress, but you're right, the site (the English site at least) looks like it was cobbled together in 1998.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- duxup 7y agoAnyone know anything about this able to break this down a bit further? This sounds like it all revolves around Android / Huawei getting booted from the Open Handset Alliance maybe?
- DannyBee 7y agoIt's because they were literally blacklisted by the US government. As other comments say, all companies in the US will do the same, it's not about Google, as much as the article tries to make it about Google
- duxup 7y agoI'm thinking more about about the specifics of what exactly is being limited here and etc.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- onetimemanytime 7y agoOr they did the same thing every US company will have to do thanks to the blacklist. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-huaweitech/chinas-huawei-70-affiliates-placed-on-us-trade-blacklist-idUSKCN1SL2W4 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-huaweitech/chin... >>The U.S. Commerce Department said on Wednesday it is adding Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and 70 affiliates to its so-called “Entity List” - a move that bans the telecom giant from buying parts and components from U.S. companies without U.S. government approval.
- mrosett 7y agoAlternative headline: “Google complies with law”. They didn’t have much choice here.
- judge2020 7y agoOtherwise, the article is good for showing the extent of the political situation. One might be able to stretch this to 'US aids potential cyber attacks in China' since phones in China might no longer receive security updates in Android.
- scarface74 7y agoThe open source version of Android is still available. Why wouldn’t that be getting updates?
- robert_foss 7y agoThat part could, but the others couldn't. Including all apps shipped on Google Play.
- srrr 7y agoWill I, as a European customer of Huawei, still get app updates from Google Play and push messages via firebase cloud messaging? Without the Google framework my phone is a brick...
- kerng 7y agoThere should be a wide list of companies to whom this applies now. Is there a more comprehensive enumeration besides just listing Google?
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoIt's every company in USA, isn't it?
- kerng 7y agoNot every US company already makes business with Huawei - so in that case they wouldn't have to stop selling/buying things, because they never started. E.g. is Microsoft, Apple or Amazon impacted?
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoThe parents said: >"There should be a wide list of companies to whom this applies now." // I assumed the "this" was "the USA's trade blacklist". The blacklist applies to all companies AFAICT, though you are right it will probably only affect a small proportion. Though any USA based company may have bought a Huawei phone, router, or similar, and presumably will not be allowed by law to do so henceforth? Not sure how things like peering with a company that uses Huawei kit, or something, would work. How deep does it go? Can you buy phone service in countries where the phone supplier has Huawei base stations?
- plantain 7y agoNo more updates for my Huawei phone then presumably. Really feeling more secure now!
- yding 7y agoHuawei really needs to give everyone bootloader unlocks so that people can move to LineageOS in the meantime.
- techntoke 7y agoThey will probably lose support from mobile carriers at that point.
- gruez 7y agowhy would carriers care about bootloader unlocks? it's different from a carrier lock, which prevents a phone from being used on another carrier.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 7y agoDoesn't an unlocked bootloader almost automatically allow bypassing of the carrier lock?
- knocte 7y agoWell, Android is opensource so they will be able to just run it, but without that google crap such as gmail, maps, assistant, etc... Which sounds like a good thing to me. I'll try to buy a new Huawei phone soon.
- daxterspeed 7y agoHuawei being a Chinese company are perfectly content with spying on you without Google trying to interfere. Be prepared in a few years when certain network requests just fail, like trying to send a comment mentioning 996.icu.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoWhich USA and USA based companies would never do; praise God for the USA defending us all from giving our money to their industrial opponents, right?
- zwaps 7y agoTo be fair, Apple has been fighting tooth and nail against the FBI decrypting their phones. Huawei, ZTE and consorts are literally owned by PRC cadre and are actively involved in infrastructure to spy on and terrorize minority groups in China, as well as getting caught spying and stealing IP abroad. I think there is no need to answer each post with Whataboutism, especially when the comparision is to tilted against Chinese companies.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago>Apple has been fighting tooth and nail against the FBI decrypting their phones // The problem is, for me, it's impossible to know if that's true or if that's the external appearance that's been designed. Nearly everyone in Apple wouldn't know either. Legally, it seems, NSA letters could force such a situation. AIR the much publicised event of 'FBI wanted to open someone's phone and Apple wouldn't' ultimately ended in a third party enabling it. So, this could easily have gone down that Apple said "we can't do that because it will kill our privacy angle in the market" and the FBI say "well just pass on the info to this third party" [eg some key needed to sign updates; or an update that decrypts all internal memories and dumps them to a port on boot, or whatever]. That's entirely undiscoverable and serves the interest of both FBI and Apple, FBI ideally want to have "backdoors" where it's publicly known "there is no backdoor".
- fffrantz 7y agoIf this also revokes the GMS agreements, it will have a much larger impact than the updates part. A whole lot of things on Android are dependant on the GMS, such as push notifications for certain apps, cloud storage of user data, and a lot more. Let's see where the it all ends up, but this may turn to be an enormous crippling move for Android on Huawei/Honor devices.
- Markoff 7y agoconsidering Huawei, xiaomi, BBK, lenorola control majority of market everywhere outside US one would say it's quite opposite, they just need to convince Samsung to join them and Google with their Google play services it's past and they can keep their small market with their pixel phones thinking about their importance and that devs charging 30% it's moral
- oblio 7y agoSamsung is extremely unlikely to join with the Chinese brands strangling them right now. And it would be way worse with Huawei/Xiaomi & co. for devs, considering how those companies update the software on their phones...
- wswkb 7y ago>the Chinese technology company that the U.S. government has sought to blacklist around the world Around the world?
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoThey appear to be working hard on having it blacklisted in the UK AFAICT. BBC Click did a report and a guy from GCHQ basically said "it's not a problem" whilst there seems to be a deal of press trying to push the political angle to make it politically expedient -- I can only assume that's a propaganda attempt by USA? I'm surprised that Huawei is such a threat to USA industry to be honest. Perhaps Trump's team has shares in their opposition, or was trying to short them?
- ETHisso2017 7y agoWell, Paul Singer, founder of Elliott Management, has donated to Trump, and Elliott has a large stake in Samsung.
- nisa 7y agoIn Germany it was in the news that US hinted that if we wouldn't participate in banning Huawei we are excluded from further sharing of intelligence and stuff like this. For 5G and T-Mobile i.e. Deutsche Telekom AG they basically said: Dare to buy Huawai and you gonna have a bad time. It's these liberal and western high ethics at work here...
- rasz 7y agoLike building Putin gas pipeline behind EUs back?
- gonvaled 7y agoBehing the EU's back? The project is public since years. The former German chancellor is publicly involved in it. The project is very much European: lots of countries involved. Why can't the EU buy gas from wherever we want? Who is the the US to tell us where to buy our gas from?
- angel_j 7y agoAll I know about Huawei is that they produced what seemed like at least half of welfware phones—the kind available to anybody on most any kind of welfare, including EBT—and these phones were utter garbage. Reasonably, one could say they had ripped off the government, these phones were such crap. Screen a .5mm pane of brittle glass that a tap could break. Barely ran android, laden with crapware, basically needed to be plugged into a power source at all times. Some you couldn't get the SIM card out, like to put in your late model Samsung Galaxy. Pure garbage, yet the welfare service the phones are supposed to support is extremely valuable to a lot of people.
- scarface74 7y agoAnd this is different than almost all of the sub $100 phones sold through companies like MetroPCS?
- angel_j 7y agoYour Tax Dollars At Work different.
- robertAngst 7y agoInstead of letting companies do international business, the government creates an artificial war. It only takes the Republican Party winning 1 election to destroy economic freedom. My political thoughts are going to change drastically if we can resew economic conditions with China after Trump leaves office.
- ralph84 7y agoLol, yes the economic conditions with China previous to the current administration were oh so free. Unless you were Google or Facebook and wanted to run a website in China. Or you were a manufacturer and wanted to manufacture in China without transferring all of your IP to a state-owned JV partner.
- ahmedfromtunis 7y agoHuawei already saw this coming; at least that's what the company signaled last march when they announced they have a 'backup OS': https://www.engadget.com/amp/2019/03/14/huawei-confirms-os/ https://www.engadget.com/amp/2019/03/14/huawei-confirms-os/
- wallmountedtv 7y agoA better source thats not google amp https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3001685/huawei-confirms-it-has-built-its-own-operating-system-just-case-us https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3001685/huawei-co...
- reaperducer 7y agoI'm not sure why this is being voted down. I'll take a well-known Hong Kong newspaper (in this case the South China Morning Post) over a tech blog re-writing other people's journalism any day.
- StudentStuff 7y agoSCMP is owned by Alibaba, they're far from impartial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Morning_Post https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Morning_Post
- reaperducer 7y agoEngadget is owned by Verizon, they're far from impartial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engadget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engadget
- microcolonel 7y agoFrom comment by StudentStuff, hidden below: > SCMP is owned by Alibaba, they're far from impartial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Morning_Post https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Morning_Post .
- Creationer 7y agoAt what point does China just develop its own mobile OS? There seems value in just taking the reigns, and making whatever you create open-source, so that ZTE and all the other Chinese manufacturers can use it as well. Its certainly a major blow to the value of Huawei phones.
- KaoruAoiShiho 7y agoNot just mobile... Huawei also makes really nice laptops and presumably MS/Intel are under the same obligation to sever relations with Huawei. Unless Huawei is going to make a huge retreat we might see a full on effort for a new OS that covers both usecases?
- yding 7y agoMy guess is that they'll probably just sell off / kill off their computer business. It's not a huge money maker for them, and trying to switch people off Windows is super hard.
- reaperducer 7y agoAt what point does China just develop its own mobile OS? Three months ago. https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3001685/huawei-confirms-it-has-built-its-own-operating-system-just-case-us https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3001685/huawei-co...
- skvark 7y agoIt was announced in 2017 that China was investing in its own mobile OS based on Sailfish OS (http://www.goodnewsfinland.com/jolla-goes-full-steam-ahead-in-china/ http://www.goodnewsfinland.com/jolla-goes-full-steam-ahead-i...). I don't know what's the status of the project currently. Russia has had similar plans (http://rusletter.com/articles/operating_system_sailfish_from_rostelecom_for_officials_is_estimated_at_160_billion_rubles http://rusletter.com/articles/operating_system_sailfish_from...).
- jorblumesea 7y agoEven if they develop a mobile OS, will it be the quality and usefulness of Google services? Android is just linux + google services. Without those, it's hard to make the sell to western audiences, at least. Google Maps is a masterpiece of engineering and it's hard to imagine that Huawei will be able to compete, near term. If I'm reading the situation right, this might mean the end of Huawei in the western phone market unless something changes.
- ETHisso2017 7y agoI can't see any Chinese phone company feeling comfortable with this move. If someone sets up a viable non-US alternative to Android and the Play Store, they could jump ship en masse.
- lone_haxx0r 7y agoLineage OS
- cs02rm0 7y agoBeats me why more manufacturers don't just take Lineage.
- ETHisso2017 7y agoIs the license still controllable by the US Commerce Department though? Because if so I don't think the Chinese would be interested
- yding 7y agoLineage isn't good enough on its own. 99% of Lineage OS users also install google play services and the google play store. You need to have a replacement for all of the closed source Google APIs for app developers to use. It's a much bigger undertaking than just recompiling the base OS from source.
- madez 7y ago> Lineage isn't good enough on its own. It's good for me¹. I want a device that does no phone home to its mothership outside my control. This requires Googles Services not to be installed. I don't doubt that many nevertheless still use Googles Services. ¹ compared to Googles Android. I'm still desperately waiting for a device with mainline Linux support without blobs.
- Mikeb85 7y ago> without blobs Will never happen.
- Kwpolska 7y ago> Huawei Technologies Co Ltd will immediately lose access to updates to the Android operating system Android security updates are part of AOSP [0]. The article explicitly mentions that Huawei still has access to Google’s OSS stuff. And besides, they couldn’t really block Huawei from accessing open-source stuff without making it closed-source or otherwise heavily restricted. [0]: https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2019-05-01 https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2019-05-01
- neilv 7y ago> has suspended business with Huawei that requires the transfer of hardware and software products except those covered by open source licenses, Could this nudge an interesting (good/bad) development in open source?
- atomicUpdate 7y agoWhy would this cause any change in open source at all? This is already the case for them in China.
- neilv 7y agoFor example, if party A wants party B using something S in particular, then S being being made "open source". And/or the accepted meanings&cultures of "open source" (or whatever the actual terminology is) changing, as A and S do their things.
- rchaud 7y agoI don't know about open source, but I'd be happy to see more Android phones that don't have Google Play services and suite of surveillance apps. Not going to get that on Huawei phones, but if Huawei starts to de-emphasize the Play Store in the future, devs might start looking to move away from Google Play distribution and towards APK downloads on their own sites. Let's face it, the "app economy" doesn't exist unless you're on iOS and can count on a paying audience. On Android, your only hope for monetization is a free to play Clash of Clans/Candy Crush clone that's jam-packed with ads, tracking and microtransactions.
- ETHisso2017 7y agoQuick question - if someone buys a Huawei phone without Play Store and Gmail, could they just download those things later? E.g. could it be done aftermarket?
- KaoruAoiShiho 7y agoI believe they cannot, Google demands certification before allowing their apps to be used. It's impossible to sideload google apps.
- the_pwner224 7y agoUnless this google certification is stored in hardware, that's not the case. You can flash Android phones with a custom bootloader, use that to flash AOSP (open source core android)/LineageOS, and for most people doing that the next step is to flash gapps on top of that. Here's a popular gapps distribution: https://opengapps.org/#aboutsection https://opengapps.org/#aboutsection Google's requirements mainly apply to OEMs bundling gapps into their stock images.
- KaoruAoiShiho 7y agolocked bootloader in huawei I think, even if they open it it's not really a normal sideload and will be hard enough to not be a generally applicable solution.
- lucb1e 7y agoI've got root on my Huawei P10 lite since day one (would have returned the phone if it were closed), not sure where you got the idea that unlocking the bootloader is not possible.
- KaoruAoiShiho 7y agoThat's just what I heard online, but maybe it's different between models.
- attila_ferencz 7y agobad news for eu mobile market. i guess we have to buy iphones again? half the features and double the price :(
- CalmStorm 7y agoThis doesn't affect much of Huawei's Chinese market as Google is banned in China anyway. However, this will have a huge impact on Huawei's overseas market, and it is hard for Huawei to come up with a backup plan. At the end of the day, Baidu (and other Google equivalent Chinese counterparts) has a negligible presence outside China.
- theossuary 7y agoI don't know anything about the supply chain for data center hardware, but it seems more likely that China would intercept shipments of say Cisco and Juniper gear and modify them (something the NSA has done) instead of building hardware with a backdoor in it? When you buy a Cisco router do they provide a "chain of custody" proving it didn't come from or go through hostile countries? I understand these routers have a Secure Boot feature, but I can't imagine that'd defend against physical modifications. If security was actually the goal, shouldn't we have a process to verify any piece of hardware; instead of just completely trusting some companies and not others? This just feels like security theater, but I kind of get it. If the US is fighting China economically, this move makes a lot of sense.
- Jolter 7y agoThis article is about Android software shipped from Google to Huawei. It does not mention data center hardware. (And in fact, I'm pretty sure Huawei are not even in the data center market. They supply telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics.
- no1youknowz 7y ago> but it seems more likely that China would intercept shipments of say Cisco Not sure if you have been paying attention to the stock market. Many of the companies which are up are ones who have eliminated their ties with China [0]. Cisco is one such company whose stock rose recently [1] as a result of moving from China [2]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m-vck6ebnE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m-vck6ebnE [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_uohGLOiK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_uohGLOiK0 [2]: https://www.ft.com/content/312f7b52-7765-11e9-be7d-6d846537acab https://www.ft.com/content/312f7b52-7765-11e9-be7d-6d846537a...
- neilv 7y agoIf this sticks, is there yet a comprehensive analysis of all the implications?
- product50 7y agoThis is likely going to hurt Huawei a lot more than Google. Losing access to latest Android versions or Google apps will make it more difficult for their phones to gain adoption globally.
- stefano 7y agoIt's pushing chinese firms to create an Android competitor. In the long term, this might hurt Google a lot.
- Mikeb85 7y agoHuawei is the world's second largest phone manufacturer. It'll hurt Google, and Huawei in Europe/Canada.
- traject 7y agoThis move will permanently destroy trust between Chinese OEM manufacturers with Google the same way revocation of private property reduces trust in the value of property. Long term wise, this could permanently splinter Android market share especially in overseas regions like India or Africa where Chinese phones command a large portion of the marketshare.
- tembo76 7y agoThe US is keen to fall for the Thucydides trap. For now the US is the dominant economy; by 2050, most GDP output will be in Asia. The US may win the short term skirmish, but they will lose this war. China is making inroads in the other economies that will matter in the future. This move is terribly myopic and will end with the US having given up an opportunity to work with the emerging power. Huawei powers and will continue to power the rest of the world. This isn’t changing anytime soon. India, Africa etc
- onei 7y agoI guess this is a thinly veiled attack on China, but I'm a bit confused why there's a feud between the US and China in the first place. Perhaps my ignorance is down to being British and a bit out of the loop, but could someone give a rough outline on what the underlying motives for this are?
- yding 7y agoThere are many reasons, but there are two fundamental ones: Projections that the Chinese economy will overtake the US and Made in China 2025. The first is easy to explain. The US likes being number 1, and if anyone else, whether the Chinese or the Japanese or the Indians looks like they're going to be number 1, the US doesn't like it. The second is this: for the last 40-50 years, the US and China have been in a hugely mutually beneficial relationship, at least on the corporate level. American companies outsourced many of its lower wage lower skilled manufacturing to China and China has saved those companies a ton of money and made their owners a lot more profit. In order for China's economy to keep growing though, the Chinese believed, correctly, that they needed to move up the food chain since their labor is not as cheap as it once was. So they identified 10 "industries of the future" where they want their companies to dominate. American companies are, once again correctly, worried that since these are the industries that we would also like to dominate, that the Chinese, if they are successful, will literally eat our lunch. There's a bunch of other stuff relating to the South China Sea, Taiwan, forced IP transfer, hacking, trade subsidies, etc. that are also causing tensions, but those two are probably the biggest ones.
- generic_user 7y agothats a good summation, it's important to note that the "Made in China 2025" is the explicit Official policy issued by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. So this is not interpretation or exaggeration. The official policy of The Peoples Republic of China is to raise the domestic sourcing of essentially all high-tech high-value goods to 75% domestic production. And also export these goods into other markets. They may not state it publicly but I think all the industrialied producer economies Fron the US to Europe and Asia are scared to death of the implications China 2025 has for there own high-tech high-value industries.
- sofaofthedamned 7y agoHow does this affect Huawei's base station business? They are massive in Europe.
- martinald 7y agoAlso interested to know. AFIAK Huawei is being used for all UK 5G rollouts, and there are already 1000s of masts up (though not commercially active yet) for 5G. Plus I imagine they have a very big marketshare of LTE kit going in as well. Huawei is also the vast majority of cabinets for VDSL in the UK (the ECI alternative which was deployed has been pulled as was really low quality compared to the Huawei kit). My rough guess there is at least 20,000 DSLAMs on nearly every streeet corner that are built by Huawei. At least in the UK it is hard to see how the country can run without this kit, and it would be an enormous undertaking to pull it out. I'm sure many other European countries are the same as Huawei's kit is definitely technically the best for this kind of stuff as far as my knowledge goes.
- wpdev_63 7y agoSad to see as they make some compelling phones with outrageously great prices[0]. I used to think about the privacy problems with buying a chinese phone but this day and age where facebook is selling your data to the highest bidder and the fusion centers crawling all over our cellphone - who cares? I'd rather have the chinese have my data than the US companies/gov't(only because I will never visit their country), though they wouldn't be exclusive in this case. [0]:https://www.banggood.com/Xiaomi-Mi-Play-Global-Version-5_84-inch-4GB-RAM-64GB-ROM-MTK-Helio-P35-Octa-core-4G-Smartphone-p-1436243.html?rmmds=home-mid-moreItems1&ID=229&cur_warehouse=HK https://www.banggood.com/Xiaomi-Mi-Play-Global-Version-5_84-...
- nAwYz 7y agoXiaomi and Huawei are not the same company
- kuyan 7y agoIt seems so, though my personal experience with their phones has been hit and miss. The specs look great on the box, but the phones themselves seem to have poor QC and support when things go wrong. That said, others have only had good experiences. YMMV.
- cyrix100 7y agoThe outrageously great prices comment got me thinking about all the IP theft allegations [0]. I wonder if the relatively lower prices are a reflection of the reduced R&D overhead compared to other companies that would otherwise need to recover that initial investment. [0]:https://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-theft-bonus-program-955187/ https://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-theft-bonus-program-...
- Markoff 7y agotime to fully embrace their own AppGallery app store, in the end Google can be shooting their own leg, users won't care what app store they use when they find there what are they looking for and play store is shitshow for years ignoring UX missing basic search filters or sorting GMS is bigger issue though WhatsApp or signal work both fine without gapps, not sure about other messengers I don't use and in general it's hard to find app which has really problems without gapps other than ridesharing apps with last devs relying on gmaps
- cromwellian 7y agoIn a way, this helps Apple (and other Android vendors) and in a way, it hurts it. Huawei phones recently have shipped market leading cameras that blow pretty much all other Android and iPhone cameras out of the water. They took a commanding lead as a premium device manufacturer. Hurting their non-China markets gives breathing space to others. However, if I were Apple, I'd be really worried about retaliation. Apple is wholly dependent on manufacturing in China and its supply chain, and even small disruptions could cause huge mounts of pain.
- avocado4 7y agoIn what world is Huawei a leading premium device manufacturer? Do you have a source?
- unixhero 7y agoHe is right.
- ksec 7y agoSource? And how do you define premium? The sentence implies leading as in market shares, and not technological.
- cromwellian 7y agoHuawei p30 leads Apple on camera quality by far. It has premium build quality and battery life. In market share they lead Apple in China, and they ship more units. Trying to act like they’re a low end bit player is ludicrous. They’re the Samsung of China now, and on track to overtake Samsung globally.
- arebours 7y agohttps://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS44188018 https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS44188018
- partiallypro 7y agoYou do know that China actively has concentration camps, right? They use data and tech they've stolen to do it. You really think that's the same as Facebook serving you ads? Give me a break.
- oblio 7y agoWell, from his perspective, as long as he's never going to China, do those camps matter?
- oblio 7y agoI like the downvotes for expressing a cynical perspective :)))
- pjmlp 7y agoLike Guantanamo?
- tlear 7y agoAnyone who ended up in Guntanamo would have had a bullet to head in PRC, they would not bother with a camp. It is for hundreds of thousands of undesirables(like Muslims etc). When USA ships it’s Muslims into a camp in Nevada desert and starts re-educating them let us know
- thro0239420342 7y agoThey are called, Native Americans.
- pjmlp 7y agoAs if CIA and co doesn't do the same. So how is Geneva convention working on there? Your list of undesirables is just sad.
- ubercow13 7y agoThey use data stolen from western users of their phones to aid in the operation of concentration camps? You're saying that by giving Chinese companies their data by using a Chinese phone, GP should consider themselves complicit in helping China run their concentration camps? What?
- chvid 7y agoI always wondered what would it take for a company to develop an alternative mobile operating system? To me the combination of Android and iOS always was the perfect mold around the business of high-end mobile phones. Android is given away for free; but to make a truly great end user experience hardware and software needs to be integrated. Like it is for iOS. But that requires an enourmous investment; and there is no "natural" piecemeal way to grow there as your business always would be competing with peers that use the "free" platform. But this gives Huawei, a massive and capable engineering company, no choice but to build an alternative. This is an extreme situation; but hopefully there will come some true innovation out of it.
- stoppergoo 7y agoAt this point I speculate a lot are on iOS to avoid android, and vice versa. Any offering that hwei makes will surely not move the needle from either camp, but it’s good to see some new competition
- chvid 7y agoIf this escalation is continued; Apple will likely loose access to the Chinese market creating a huge open space for a high-end mobile phone offering.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- chvid 7y agoBut it is also worth noting the ZTE story which ended with ZTE paying a 1B "fine": https://www.androidauthority.com/zte-reportedly-will-pay-us-up-to-1-7-billion-to-lift-hardware-parts-ban-872958/ https://www.androidauthority.com/zte-reportedly-will-pay-us-...
- mrtksn 7y agoMicrosoft tried hard to have a mobile operating system, there were others too but the problem is that nobody cares for the operating system if there is no viable ecosystem around it.
- AsyncAwait 7y agoThis was expected. Huawei now presents a serious competition to the likes of Apple, so the 'free market' in the U.S. responds by...shutting down the competition. Now I know the counterargument is about Chinese protectionism, but it is the U.S. who has always championed free market capitalism and led interventions in order to forcibly open other markets to its exports. As this shows however, this belief in the free market is anything but principled.
- ubercow13 7y agoIt seems like the exact opposite is true. China in some sense doesn't abide by free market or free trade principles, and this can be seen as a principled stand against that.
- AsyncAwait 7y agoExcept China has not locked U.S. smartphone makers like Apple anywhere near to the degree that the U.S. is targeting Huawei. Also, China does not necessarily claim to be as free-market as the U.S. does and as far as I am aware, has not let interventionist wars in order to open up a foreign market to its companies. What I am talking here is principle. The U.S. claims to have free speech for example, China does not. But in that instance the U.S. sticks by its principles and maintains its free speech protections, despite China not having them. Why is this different when it comes to the free market? A concept the U.S. has in recent history definitely fought harder worldwide than the pursuit of free speech.
- bjourne 7y agoBut the EU does. Yet Trump's steel tariffs hit EU countries too.
- gonvaled 7y agoWhy does the US not go to the WTO then? That's the standard process for conflict resolution. Those are the rules set up by the US.
- andr 7y agoI may have missed this, but have there been any specific accusations against Huawei? It is clear Chinese actors hack and steal IP, but have those been connected to Huawei, or are they just the easiest victim for the US to retaliate against?
- Joakal 7y agoNone, Australian government has banned Huawei for government work. Me and others have demanded the government to ban them from consumers but no. Huawei is allowed to sell to unsuspecting businesses/consumers in Australia. Huawei could sue the Australian government over the ban: https://www.afr.com/business/telecommunications/huawei-won-t-rule-out-suing-australia-20190404-p51apq https://www.afr.com/business/telecommunications/huawei-won-t...
- bartimus 7y agoWhen it comes to security everyone's guilty until proven innocent.
- johannes1234321 7y agoAnd it is impossible to prove innocent.
- tehlike 7y agoChina has apps with plenty of install base. That is probably the bigger threat noone has really noticed yet...
- rocqua 7y agoThere were reports out of the UK about bad software hygiene, with some implications of bug-doors.
- mutt2016 7y agoWe are talking about Huawei and not Cisco right? They seem to have a constant stream of the problems and nobody seems to give a shit.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- kyboren 7y agoI assume Cadence, Synopsys, Mentor Graphics, Xilinx, Intel PSG, Microsemi, Lattice, and Qualcomm are also affected by the Huawei blacklist. Can Huawei survive without these critical components and EDA tools? If Huawei ignores the loss of licenses and uses existing software and libraries to develop future products, will those be banned from US and EU markets?
- maimeowmeow 7y agoDo they even respect licenses to being with?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 7y agoI doubt shipping phones with easily identifiable pirated Qualcomm IP to western countries is going to work well.
- sanxiyn 7y agoAs I understand, Huawei doesn't use Qualcomm IP anyway. They have their own LTE modem.
- baybal2 7y ago> EDA tools? I never believed it was ever a case of Cadence being warezed given it is an extremely niche product locked down under ridiculous multiple DRMs, but I was shown few FTPs around with multimegabuck EDAs and semiconductor simulation packages that are probably in use by less than 100 companies worldwide being warezed like as it they were MS Word or something.
- yding 7y agoA big one that people haven't mentioned is ARM. Huawei can get by without Qualcomm chips. But I don't know how they're going to be able to keep up without an ARM license. And it's not like they could just switch to Intel even if that was an actually viable option.
- longnosf 7y ago
- jokoon 7y agoI avoided those phones like the plague, guess it was a good choice. I bet it has a lot to do with the whole huawei backdoor story. To be honest outsourcing such sensitive consumer device to a police state has not been a good idea for a long time. I hope it will give good reasons to consider designing either open smartphones, or minimalist os designs with c++ or webasm apps. If smartphones get bloated, they won't be affordable anymore.
- rocqua 7y agoI wouldn't rule out a protectionist push from the US gov. as being behind this.
- johannes1234321 7y agoNot sure that giving it to a prism+xkeyscore state is thaaat much better. And yes legal protection in the US is a lot better than China, while I as European have little power in either, but also hardly an alternative.
- fabianhjr 7y agoThe US doing some market manipulation again; good thing they want to stop companies and countries from spying on people. /s https://www.wikiwand.com/en/PRISM_(surveillance_program) https://www.wikiwand.com/en/PRISM_(surveillance_program)
- kpU8efre7r 7y agoAre you against warrants?
- fabianhjr 7y agoI am against warrantless searches and seizures. (Which PRISM and other 3-letter agencies' programs are notorious of doing)
- kpU8efre7r 7y agoPRISM use requires a warrant.
- fabianhjr 7y agoFrom the wikipedia article: > U.S. government officials have disputed some aspects of the Guardian and Washington Post stories and have defended the program by asserting it cannot be used >>>on domestic targets<<< without a warrant I feel way better now, only US citizens get the benefit of warrants and the rest of the world will still get spied on as much as possible. (I am not a US citizen)
- Mikeb85 7y agoI wonder if this will be the catalyst for foreign companies to stop using US technology. For everything that the US has done to other countries over the years, US tech companies have somewhat maintained their independence. Now that US companies are being compelled to not sell to various Chinese companies, it could be a wake-up call to the rest of the world that US companies are now simply another arm of the US government.
- rorykoehler 7y agoAs a European founder (small app company) it will definitely add another dimension to how I think about our strategic roadmap. You can be certain that large non-US corporates will be far more aggressive in their approach to this problem.
- roca 7y agoThese rules don't make US companies "another arm of the US government". US companies can (and do!) push back against the US government, through the courts, political parties, and ultimately elections. Chinese companies, on the other hand, have no such recourse against their government.
- gonvaled 7y ago> These rules don't make US companies "another arm of the US government". US companies can (and do!) push back against the US government, through the courts, political parties, and ultimately elections. Show me the push back to the following: - NSA backdooring - The whole Prisma scandal - The current trade war with China And tell me how EU governments benefit from US companies avoiding taxes, and repatriating revenues generated in the European market to the US. The US is a highly unreliable, politicized provider. The US uses technology to steal data and taxes from other countries. And abuses its position to impose its will. We can not build our digital infrastructure like this anymore. I assume EU governments are following this very closely.
- dharma1 7y agoThink this will have long reaching ramifications. Huawei is much closer to the Chinese government than ZTE was - this won't go without repercussions. A version of Android/replacement to Android that is used by most Chinese phones but not in the hands of Google seems like the inevitable outcome. We already know China can produce world class hardware - I wonder how they will fare at operating systems. It's not an easy task.
- rl3 7y agoI'd love to see a forensic level reverse engineering/technical audit of the Nexus 6P hardware. In reality Chinese intelligence likely wasn't stupid enough to try anything there, but I often wonder how many eyes Google had on hardware security for that project considering it was Huawei making their flagship phone at the time. I also wonder if there were any NSA efforts to tear the thing apart, since they are likely better qualified and have more experience in that realm.
- StavrosK 7y agoWhy is China so likely to bug the phone but the NSA isn't?
- xparco 7y agoBecause most people here are debt dorks with cognitive dissonance and doublethink
- rl3 7y ago>Why is China so likely to bug the phone but the NSA isn't? Nowhere did I touch on the probability of the NSA bugging anything. Nor did I state it was likely that the Chinese would have placed a backdoor in the Nexus 6P. On the contrary, I think you misread my comment.
- roca 7y agoEven if the NSA backdoors phones, you have to consider which government you trust more. The US government isn't great but China's is far worse.
- Barrin92 7y agoI'm European with a huawei phone and I don't trust either side a lot, but it's the US gov. who spied on my country's officials from their own embassy a few years ago and it always seems to be the American gov. that somehow ends up bullying someone around. I don't pretend that the Chinese have any better intentions but they're long term greedy enough to not accidentally brick my phone because Google can't ship updates to it any more. If I actually lose functionality on my phone because the US government pressures Google into doing things that affects European consumers I'll be pretty pissed.
- ghobs91 7y agoTo all those stating that Huawei should just make their own OS, it's nowhere near that simple. Forking Android is the easy part, building an app ecosystem that thousands of developers across the globe actively partake in is incredibly difficult. Microsoft couldn't even pull it off with Windows Phone. I predict their own Android fork and China-focused app store will do fine in China, but struggle big time in other markets.
- xparco 7y agoSpeak for yourself prole...you are nowhere near Huawei's level.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- walrus01 7y agoDomestically within China, Huawei and other phones already use non-google-app-stores. https://technode.com/2018/08/13/android-china-q2-2018/ https://technode.com/2018/08/13/android-china-q2-2018/
- baybal2 7y agoWell, not only in China, but pretty much every other country where demand for Gaps is not an issue, and it was from day one for them as an Android vendor. It was the one and only Chinese brand with whom Google made a Nexus phone in the past — at least in part to lessen their enthusiasm in throwing out Google market in Western countries
- ehsankia 7y agoWell Play Store is not accessible in China, so they kinda have to.
- mayama 7y agoWill Huawei still have access to TSMC, Samsung fabs etc? I think Hardware should be more of an issue for them than software. Chinese phones already use some alternative to play store iirc.
- matiasb 7y agoIn my country, Paraguay, the government just signed a contract with Huawei for a fiber optic connectivity project.
- cfarm 7y agoI think this creates a nationalistic retaliation -- "We don't need America. We can do it ourselves, and better."
- rorykoehler 7y agoNot only from China.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoBefore Trump I would have disagreed with you (at least concerning the USA).
- cfarm 7y agoIt depends on what Trump does. He may start opening up other avenues for America to get the same trade we had with China. For example, we might get friendlier with Mexico or Vietnam. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48273550 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48273550
- rorykoehler 7y agoIt doesn't because this shows that things can change on a whim. No one is going to commit billions of dollars to anything in such a precarious environment.
- cfarm 7y agoSo you think other nations will retaliate also?
- rorykoehler 7y agoNations I'm not sure but it will for sure impact strategy at all companies of all sizes from large multi-national corporates down to bootstrapped startups like my own.
- jasoneckert 7y agoThis is essentially another twist in the US/China tech war that is currently going on. I don't feel I have enough knowledge to speculate on its effects, but all war is bad.
- mhkool 7y agowell, until today Google had a large stable market share with Android. Trump initiated the end of that. Android will have a lower share and the market is not stable any more. And everybody outside the US will think twice before buying any product where the US government can destroy its service.
- mtw 7y agoWas Huawei explicitly named in the executive order? To my understanding, no, so I don't get why the story focuses on Huawei. For example, Motorola, owned by chinese company Lenovo, One Plus, Xiaomi or Oppo should not use Android either. Trump also named many other countries as threats to national security, such as Canada, Germany, Mexico, and many others. There's no reason one day South Korea enters the list and Samsung will also get blocked by executive order .
- sanxiyn 7y agoHuawei is explicitly named in Federal Register 2019-10616. Lenovo, Xiaomi, etc. is not. https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2019-10616.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.g...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- windexh8er 7y agoThis isn't surprising. What the US government wants the government gets. I was working for a large ISP in 2010-2011 and we were considering long haul transport gear between Huawei and Infinera. All things being equal Huawei had a better cost/performance value prop. That was, until the FBI came in with a heavy handed opinion. You see at that point in time the best place to siphon data was at large ingress/egress. As I understand it there are two reasons the FBI wanted Infinera: 1) Infinera is a US based company and had to abide, like Cisco, to provide "LE" (law enforcement) capable firmware/software and 2) to keep a Chinese firm from generally gaining that position in a large ISP. So while it's huge Google was told what to do, it's not surprising as this is business as usual. And back to an earlier point... The best place to siphon data in 2019? Your phone. Times have changed, data collection by governments hasn't.
- yding 7y agoBy LE capable firmware you mean that the FBI had a backdoor to eavesdrop? Wow.
- windexh8er 7y agoYes indeed [0]. [0] https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/routers/10000/10008/feature/guides/lawful_intercept/10LIovr.html https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/routers/10000/10008/fe...
- lone_haxx0r 7y agoSo, the US having freedom really was just a meme after all.
- plazmatic 7y agoEverything is a meme to the plebs these days. Simplify everything for the small brains.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- enriquto 7y agoThat's great! We will finally be able to buy google-free android devices from a major vendor!
- usr1106 7y ago> We will finally be able to buy google-free android devices from a major vendor What I read apps remain supported, but (security) updates to the firmware will stop. So Google continues to sell user data and the NSA has even easier access.
- enriquto 7y agoBut this is for existing devices. Forthcoming models will likely be google-free. Yay!
- timkly 7y agoAs an Australian with a Hauwei phone, the writing is on the wall for me. Google Android in no longer a universal platform and moving forward, I doubt I'll ever buy anything again Google or US related again in terms of tech. This si no longer a China vs US issue, it's the US vs the world.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- PixyMisa 7y agoIt's a China vs. the world issue. China has been spying on everyone, for years. Political, military, commercial, makes no difference.
- bouncycastle 7y agoSeems like we have forgotten all about Snowden.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- lone_haxx0r 7y agoSo has the US.
- dx034 7y agoFor the EU it's really just the question if you want to be spied on by the US or by China. In recent years, trade with China has probably helped the economy much more than trade with the US. At the same time, China (while certainly acting out of self interest), is somewhat predictable in their actions. Europeans are really critical of China and their policies (esp. their human rights record). But they don't like the US that much more (apart from the Brits) and with a struggling economy you really don't want to make them choose between money and ideology.
- 7y ago
- gonvaled 7y agoHow is this going to work exactly? The world supply chains are supposed to avoid Huawei in the coming months / years, local politicians will be painfully explaining their citizens that Huawei is a security risk (we will need to take their word for it, no evidence is being provided) and once the US government (is this just Trump now, is the US a dictatorship?) changes its mind, then the whole world is going to start using Huawei again? This is not going to fly.
- gonvaled 7y agoThe mere fact that this is possible, highlights the risk that international trade has become, specially regarding technology. Any country holding a considerable share of the technology market should be considered a single point of failure, and diversification should take place. The US is currently the 100-pound technology gorilla, and they are highly politicized. Very unreliable, and using its position to force its will into all kind of matters. No country should rely on the US as a single provider, to avoid being target of blackmail. It is actually surprising that we have reached the current status quo without realizing about these simple facts. Re-decentralization of the Internet (and technology in general) is long overdue. The same applies to other "industries". A frightening one is nuclear missiles. We are so used to the US (and the Russians) having thousands of nuclear heads that we do not care anymore. And simply because it has worked out in the past, we assume that the worse can be avoided indefinitely. Nothing is further from the truth: the current situation guarantees that there will be a nuclear war. It is not a question of if, but when. We are a crazy president away from starting it (or maybe we have already hit the jackpot).
- bubblethink 7y agoThis has a few interesting potential repercussions that nobody is talking about. Since this is a lose-lose situation for both, here are a some possible outcomes: a) Google moves enough play services code into AOSP to make AOSP more functional than it is now. b) Webapps become more of a thing c) Play services become "downloadable" when you visit google.com d) Play services become standardised and/or federated
- cududa 7y agoAll of these scenarios assume Google actively wants to help Huawei succeed.
- bubblethink 7y agoWell, it's as much about helping themselves. Huawei is a pretty large android manufacturer globally. It's a tradeoff between play services moat v/s higher adoption at reduced lock-in.
- esolyt 7y agoWhy isn't this titled as "Google revokes Huawei's Android license"? "Suspends some business" is an understatement.
- cfarm 7y agoThis will also affect Huawei in other countries in Emea if they can't access Google play.
- eitland 7y agoAnd suddenly Samsungs stubborn idea of including their own app store and their own apps makes a lot more sense. It has always annoyed me but I guess events like this proves why they've chosen to do it.
- lukaa 7y agoThis is reason why verticaly integrated monopolies are bad.That is reason i use F—droid and everyone should support open source(completely open sourced programs).
- stunt 7y agoGoogle has a long history of F...all altitude. Not a surprise.
- tzfld 7y ago>Huawei will only be able to use the public version of Android and will not be able to get access to proprietary apps and services from Google Sometimes this isn't a bad thing at all.
- stunt 7y agoI’m amazed with some opinions on data privacy by reading some comments here. We are now discussing US vs. China and who is better to own our data?! That’s really sad to see how many gave up on privacy.
- kanishkdudeja 7y agoWouldn't be surprised if the Chinese government retalitates by blocking all iPhone sales in China.
- ChildOfChaos 7y agoThere is an arguement for making sure a company controlled by an outside state that cannot be trusted has nothing to do with providing important infrastructure, in fact it makes sense that this is monitored and perhaps somewhat produced by the local government to ensure maximum security. However it’s something else entirely when a ruling given under that premise effectively knocks out that companies other businesses. I have a feeling this is more to do with Trump’s trade war than overall security. Stopping Huawei getting android licenses effects it’s global business, it has nothing to do with the security of the communication network in the US.