This is interesting… now Huawei may have their own app store, search engine, internet explorer etc., on their vast number of devices which may be a loss to Google, Microsoft, Android etc…
Huawei’s Alarming New Surprise For Google
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In good news for the rest of us, a little competition from other places might make the whole ecosystem a little more user friendly. Force Google to actually put some effort into improving searching, recommendations, and organization.
Not saying I want to jump into Huawei’s system. But Google’s setup is far from perfect.
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Not a surprise all, I have been mentioning this for some time as a roadmap and it was announced more fully last week.
The core issue was that the ban for Google to certify new Huawei devices went on for so long, without any actual evidence if its valid, so Europe combined with China had to diversify from Google. If US had given evidence, or found a solution quicker, then this would not happen. I suspect its too late now Europe in particular needs to be able to get good quality Chinese phones without US blocking them.
“Walk quietly carrying a big stick” stops working if you go around wacking people.
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Huawei has serious problems as a provider of 5G services in the US. At least if you realize the degree of susceptibility to surveillance from core technology the 5G design has.
Not sure that should be a reason to block their phones, but using Chinese tech in the core of any 5G network should be a clear no if you don’t want China to have full access to it.
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Wonder if they will eventually split from Android
But a USA or S.Korean one is fine? Doesn’t that just change who you are vulnerable to? Of course evidence is better than conjecture.
But I get your point, edge, handsets Vs core. Core is where whoever you use has to be held to a higher scrutiny, and regardless of who without bias. Checking code no matter where from.
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I am not a fan of the design of 5G networks. Mostly because it would have been really easy to specify end to end device level encryption as a requirement in the spec, and make most of the other concernts irrelevant. Then no one is spying on anyone. The current design lets governments get in, which means they have to control which other governments might get in. And everything Huawei can access, is fully available to the Chinese government.
Apparently the “speculation” that they were engaging in violations of embargos was pretty spot on. The other things they have been accused of might be hard to prove in a court of law without subpeona power in their home country, but are likely just as well founded. You can make a case for not preventing google from doing business with them, but not so much for them not being an arm of the chinese state.
not surprised at all actually…but will it grow outside of China is the main question.
Actually put some effort? Have you tried using Bing, Yahoo, Ask, AOL, DuckDuckGo, Baidu, Naver, etc? Garbage. True, Google’s setup is not perfect, but Search and Gmail are superior to any other ecosystem.
I can see this maybe, just maybe working in China. But like @ximage29 said, the main question is whether people outside China will adopt the Huawei ecosystem. I highly doubt it. For those of you in Europe, would you use Huawei Search? Huawei Mail?
I doubt that’s the outcome.
People will install Google apps they want.
- opengapps.org
- not be able to use Google Play Store, so use Huawei App gallery for the remaining ones
For sure to have this headwind will blunt Huawei sales but it is not reasonable an unproven assertion by one country to harm everyone. Google is piggy in the middle don’t want this and are fighting it as every month goes on means more pressure on apps to publish outside of Play Store.
These notions a country can hide backdoors in phone handsets, well why doesn’t USA come up with an international agreed audit system and put it for forward for itself for Apple, for S.Korea for Samsung, and for Huawei in China. Surely that is good for everyone?
Force Google to actually put some effort into improving searching, recommendations, and organization.
Actually put some effort? Have you tried using Bing, Yahoo, Ask, AOL, DuckDuckGo, Baidu, Naver, etc? Garbage. True, Google’s setup is not perfect, but Search and Gmail are superior to any other ecosystem.
I was referring to those features in the Google play store. If you don’t think there are problems there I am glad Google’s system works uniquely well for you.
I didn’t even know AOL still had a search engine, and the alternative of using Baidu when we are discussing Huawei’s security risks is amusing. But I have used bing and duckduckgo. Both have upsides and downsides, but I rarely go to google anymore except on my phone where the voice assistant is sometimes easiest to get to. And even when I used google more regularly, I would sometimes switch to one of the others when google’s results failed me.
And I use Gmail. Which is one of the reasons I avoid some of their other services - having access to all my email is enough personal information for anyone.
I’ve used custom roms and gapps before. My experience leads me to believe it will be a pretty rare case that an average user installs it on their own. There are lots of pitfalls, and the vast majority of phone users will just be frustrated at the built in apps until they get a new phone (from another vendor) rather than go searching for something else.
And I don’t think the US wants an audit system to find the backdoors they are taking advantage of any more than China does. It would be better for US citizens and the world if the NSA were retasked as a defensive agency protecting us, rather than an offensive agency trying to spy on everyone.
I agree Occams Razor will apply, you’d expect the extra steps would put people off, but then those steps can be made idiot proof if its intended to be done more frequently.
No doubt the barrier US Administration put up for Google to be out-the-box installed harms Google and Huawei and the user community, worsening competition.
So if USA says huawei phones has backdoors, means that phones can be made with backdoors, so unless its proved iPhones don’t have backdoors, they should be banned outside of US. Right? You cannot make a blanket statement without it being immediately pointed back blanketly. This small spat has gone on way too long, none look good.
I don’t intend to buy any phones from anyone this year, I intend to battery replace my 2 year old Chinese phone and look forward to 2021 technology.
Not a bad idea. I loved the Huawei laptops, would’ve bought one if I didn’t already have my MacBook Pro that I love! It was very similar build quality, which is probably why I liked it so much. 
I currently have the Pixel 2 and the Amazon Fire 8. I sideloaded the Google Play Store on the Fire because the Amazon App Store only has a limited selection of apps. The steps are already almost idiot proof, but it definitely is not for most people. The only reason the Amazon Fire devices still sell like hot cakes even without Google apps is that most people use it as Amazon intended (stay within Amazon ecosystem, watch Amazon-fed content, read Kindle books, limited email, limited browsing, etc.). That won’t cut it for a smartphone.
As for the government regulations, the big difference is that in China, all companies are required to assist the Chinese government with its intelligence work. That is not true in the US, Europe, and most other countries. The Chinese government does not have to give any reason to request all data that Huawei holds for any hardware that it sold. Facebook, Apple, Google, and other US companies sometimes share data with its government as well, but only on a very limited basis.
Trivial to solve.
Make data on Huawei phones only stored on the phone, or in a server held outside of China. Then China asks for something, gets everything, which is nothing. Voila.
So it can be solved, and USA could easily form a process with Huawei to do it. If USA actually wanted to.
I don’t necessarily buy that there is a backdoor. If there is something hard-coded into the hardware that allows all Huawei phones to send data back to Huawei, then I’d like to think that it would be traceable through network packets. But the Huawei ban is under the assumption that there is a backdoor. So IF that is the case …
Huawei will not comply to having data stored on the phone or in a server outside China. They have no choice but to comply with Chinese laws to help the government with gathering intelligence.
Huawei denies that there is a backdoor. The US insists that there is. Hence the impasse.
Well its good you’re safely not having a Huawei phone so you’re perfectly safe from state spying…