ISSUE 63 • ANDROID ADVISOR 5NEWSSo far, the two companies have been doing
their best to play down the doom and gloom, while
being purposefully vague about what happens
next. In a statement, Google said, “For users of our
services, Google Play and the security protections
from Google Play Protect will continue to function
on existing Huawei devices,” while Huawei assured
users that it “will continue to build a safe and
sustainable software ecosystem, in order to provide
the best experience for all users globally”.
There’s a lot of grey area within those words, but
the bottom line is, nothing is changing right now. Your
Huawei P30 Pro or Mate 20 will continue to function
as normal, and you’ll be able to download, delete, and
update apps as you’ve always been. And there’s good
reason to believe that things won’t change for a while,
- Transitions take time
Since Google’s decision to revoke Huawei’s licence
is a recent one, it will likely be a very long time
before the effects are felt. Even if it’s a universal
ban, removing apps, search, and the Play Store from
Huawei phones isn’t as easy as flipping a switch, as
Google’s services are intertwined into Android and
Huawei’s EMUI skin. So your Huawei phone will work
the same today as it did yesterday, and likely will for
many months to come while the two companies work
out how an Android world looks without Google. - Existing phones might be exempt
We don’t know the full details of Google’s licence
revocation, but there’s a chance that phones that