Ever since US President Donald Trump announced that he would be imposing a trade ban on Huawei back in May, one of the biggest questions was whether future Huawei smartphones would be able to ship with Google’s Android operating system.
Well, that question has finally been answered, but you might not like the result.
According to a recent report by Reuters, a Google spokesperson confirmed that the upcoming Mate 30 cannot be sold with “licensed Google apps and services”, which basically means that Huawei’s next flagship will not ship with Android.
The US government recently granted Huawei a 90-day extension to the reprieve that lets the them do business with American companies, but it unfortunately does not apply to new products.
Considering that the Mate 30 is Huawei’s next major release, this casts a dark cloud over other upcoming smartphones such as the Mate X (a little weird, considering that the foldable phone was said to be unaffected by the ban) and…well, pretty much every other one that the company makes from here on out.
Unfortunate as the situation is, this shouldn’t come as a complete surprise — earlier this month Huawei chairman Liang Hua admitted that while Android was still the company’s first choice for an operating system, he was unsure if the Mate 30 would be allowed to use it.
“If the US government allows us to use Android, we will use Android. But if the US doesn’t allow us, then we will turn to alternatives,” he said.
The good news, however, is that said alternative is already good to go. At the Huawei developer’s conference earlier this month Huawei CEO Richard Yu unveiled Harmony OS, a Microkernal-based operating system that — while not for smartphones per se — can easily be converted into an Android replacement in a matter of days.
Huawei has always treated using Harmony OS on smartphones like a last resort, but it looks like the Chinese tech giant might have to do just that in light of this new development.
Feature Image Credit: Vulcan Post
