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.
The effect on Android updates
Huawei will still be allowed to use Android since it’s open source. However, updating existing Huawei devices to newer versions of Android will serve to be a bit of a problem. If an OEM wants to include the Play Store on a newer Android release, it needs to get recertified by Google. And since Google can’t provide Huawei with its services, Huawei phones can’t get recertified and they will have to lose Play Store access in the newer Android version update. This would be a huge downgrade for users and Huawei simply can’t go that route.
There is some good news, though. Security updates don’t require recertification and Huawei can continue to provide them. Huawei released a press release saying that it will continue to provide security updates and after-sales services to all existing Huawei and Honor smartphones and tablets.
For Huawei users' questions regarding our steps to comply w/ the recent US government actions: We assure you while we are complying with all US gov't requirements, services like Google Play & security from Google Play Protect will keep functioning on your existing Huawei device.
— Android (@Android) May 20, 2019
The 90-day reprieve
A little while after this move was announced, the US Department of Commerce announced a 90-day reprieve. For now, Huawei will be able to do business with Google and provide software updates to its Android phones until August 19, 2019. However, after these 90 days get over, Huawei’s going to need a solution, and it has a few up its sleeve.
Huawei’s rumored solutions
One of the options Huawei is exploring is to use an in-house operating system, and reports indicate it’s also in talks with alternative app store Aptoide. Aptoide isn’t an official software market, however. It doesn’t take regional or device restrictions into account and even lets people download unstable versions. But it’s possible that Huawei fixes these problems and relaunches a new, polished version of it.
Huawei has also been developing an in-house operating system, and it’ll be able to run apps built for Android. A long-term collaboration with Aptoide seems to be the only way to go for Huawei, be it with Android or their in-house operating system. However, the partnership with Aptoide is just a rumor and there hasn’t been any official statement from Huawei yet.
Our take
Undoubtedly, this is a huge blow for Huawei. This move could encourage OEMs to develop their own operating systems, which could eat Android’s market share up and lead to even more fragmentation. However, while they can still develop their own operating systems, not having Google Play Services could prove to be a huge disadvantage. We’ve seen many in-house operating systems like Tizen which have the ability to run Android apps, but they didn’t take off.
Moreover, Android apps generally always use some kind of Google Play service like location services, in-app purchases, Firebase, etc. Huawei would need to develop alternatives to them and developers will have to rewrite their apps to use Huawei’s alternatives. Also, Aptoide is a poor choice for an app store since apps are rarely uploaded by the developers themselves and it’s often riddled with malware.
Either way, we don’t know how things will play out and we can only wait and see what Huawei does.
