The Huawei and Google dilemma: A complete rundown of everything

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard that the United States Government added Huawei to its “Entity List.” This prevents American companies from doing any type of business with Huawei without explicit government approval. To comply with this order, Google has to stop providing Huawei with Google services like the Play Store, Gmail, and anything else that requires the Play Services Framework.

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OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro: Everything you need to know

Today, OnePlus held an event to reveal two new smartphones: the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro. This is a first for OnePlus because they have always launched one flagship at a time. The OnePlus 7 is a small step up from the OnePlus 6T and comes with mainly spec bumps. The OnePlus 7 Pro, on the other hand, is OnePlus’ flagship that OnePlus can actually pit in front of its competitors.

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Counterclockwise: Using an Essential Phone in 2019

essential phone

Every year, the multi-million worth tech giants, in Samsung, Apple, and Huawei, introduce the world to their latest fleet of flagship smartphones, boasting about the hardware and some of the features their phones have on board. And while these phones gain a lot of traction among the average Jacks and Joes of people, these tech marvels don’t necessarily float the boat of the geeky critiques—it’s a natural progression that newer models will continue to improve and fill the voids of their predecessors. Apart from the eye-watering price tag these phones have, their manufacturers don’t really care about those who love to tweak their phones and develop interesting projects for them. And when Google wielded an ax in the Nexus lineup, there weren’t many choices left for these people other than OnePlus, a (sort of) fresh start-up company at that time. However, I think there is one brand that escaped through the nets that many have unfairly given their cold shoulders: Essential.

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Amazon and Google are officially friends now: YouTube on Fire TV, Prime Video on Chromecast and Android TV

Way back in December of 2017, Google pulled YouTube off of the Fire TV citing a “lack of reciprocity” by Amazon. Amazon would not carry Chromecast and Google Home products on their store, Prime Video did not support Chromecast, and new Nest devices were being pulled. Consumers were the ones to suffer the most because of these companies’ disagreements. However, Amazon essentially announced yesterday that they and Google are officially friends now. Hooray!

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Google accidentally sent someone ten pink Pixel 3s instead of one

Customer service isn’t every company’s cup of tea, but Google just took it to a whole new level. Reddit user /u/Cheetohz returned a defective white Pixel 3 for a refund. He didn’t receive a full refund, but he ordered a replacement anyway. Instead of sending him one replacement, Google sent him ten—yes, you read that right—ten Pixel 3s.

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Google introduces Android search and browser app choices for users in Europe

Last year, the EU had hit Google with a €4.3 billion antitrust fine. One of the reasons was that Google makes Android phone manufacturers install the Google Search app and Chrome as a condition for allowing them to offer access to the Play Store and other Google services. According to the EU, this helped Google’s monopoly over web search. Google did split Android, Chrome, and Search to comply with regulations, but now Google will also start presenting prompts to Android users in Europe with an option to download other search apps and browsers.

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