- Google plans to adhere to the U.S. government order to put Huawei on the Entity List
- Current Huawei owners will still have services like Google Play and security from Google Play Protect
- Huawei users will immediately lose the ability to update their Google or Android OS
- Huawei is being punished by the Trump administration as part of an ongoing trade war between the United States and China
Chinese tech company Huawei is in hot water as Trump places the company on the Entity List, essentially a blacklist of companies for U.S. trade.
Following this bold move, Google has promised to halt all business with Huawei including the transferring of hardware, software, services, and all personal information.
In an exclusive story by Reuters, it was revealed that Huawei will lose access to all future updates on Google and Android OS, and future phones will be locked from the Play Store, Gmail and YouTube. That’s a huge blow to the Chinese smartphone maker.
But it’s also pretty bad news for Huawei owners. According to sources, existing Huawei devices will still have access to services like the Google Play app store, and the security functions of Google Play Protect. At least that’s something.
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
But there’s no guarantee that future Huawei devices will be able to use any Google services, which is surely a big deal for anyone looking to pick up a Huawei smartphone in future.
UPDATE 5/22/19: There has been a 90-day extension granted to Huawei with regards to Android support (meaning devices should remain unchanged up until the middle of August). What happens after that remains unclear.
