Asian shops shun Huawei phone trade-ins on Google suspension worries

[HeWhoLurksLate]

Meanwhile, the EU is trying to somewhat cut off Google's monopoly on Android, by telling them they can't force manufacturers to use their software. Now, people in Asia are complaining that they can't access Google's stuff.

It seems like a bit off that Huawei, which, IIRC, was part of that group of companies that was complaining about Google's monopoly, doesn't have a good replacement for Google's services.

[ncallaway]

> Meanwhile, the EU is trying to somewhat cut off Google's monopoly on Android, by telling them they can't force manufacturers to use their software. Now, people in Asia are complaining that they can't access Google's stuff.

These don't seem that...opposite to me. They both fundamentally are the same complaint: there is a lack of _choice_ to be had.

Yes, they are attacking different sides of that lack of choice in different regions, but they're both fundamentally saying we should have the option, but not be required to do this thing.

[ggg2]

one thing just exacerbates the other. why do you think they should have had an alternative ready if they did fall (like us all) for google's empty promises of an open system?

case in point f-droid: open source playStore alternative. go see how many confirmations and special settings you have to figure out to be able to use.

another: mozilla location services and UnifiedNlp. two full replacement for google location via wifi. google completely broke the hability to use it deliberately and for no good technical reason (it is trivial if you have root. literally just change one setting that was only added to block the existing feature of setting a new location backend provider)

[orloffm]

Manufacturers (like Russian Yandex) cannot use Google Play Services / store infrastructure and replace Google's Apps with their own. It's either all-in, or full China mode.

[supertiger]

you didn't RC. Huawei is still praising Google and Android even after the ban.

re EU and Asia's different stance on this, that's exactly what monopoly is. EU is getting ahead of the game and IMO making the right move. Rest of the world needs to join, close the legal loopholes of monopoly and do something to protect user privacy.

[antome]

The problem is that the play store is a monopoly. If neither Amazon nor Samsung can create an app store with even a small fraction of the total useful apps found on the play store, who can? And if you can't find one particular app on the Amazon/Samsung store, why bother at all?

[ak39]

Can the user not simply erase OEM and load the stock Android OS and use the phone just as effectively (fully)?

[SllX]

Try actually selling that to an entire market.

It hasn’t caught on. It might be that it hasn’t caught on yet, or it might be that it will never catch on.

Or customers in these markets can simply disregard Huawei entirely, and buy something from a company that isn’t blacklisted by the US Government. $5 that most people would rather do that than install their own operating system.

[black_puppydog]

If the bootloader were unlocked and the devices well supported by lineage etc, sure. Sadly that's not the case. I'd love for Huawei to do that though. Focus on making great hardware, and make sure that aosp/postmarketOS etc work by default.

[supergirl]

i imagine no. google services and maybe all apps can get some hw id that tells them it's huawei. maybe a custom android built that lies about this. but then google might build more checks and so on

[vbezhenar]

There's no stock Android OS.

[baybal2]

Some Huawei phones in Asian markets were sold without gapps for many years.

[inawarminister]

Singapore and Philippines aren't exactly Mainland China...

[xbmcuser]

Till recently Huawei phones bootloaders could be easily be unlocked. If they still are people now can get a cheap phone and install lineage or other os

[taneq]

Would running LineageOS on one of these circumvent the concerns about Huawei? Or are people worried they're compromised at the driver or firmware level?

[jeroenhd]

Even if Huawei would let you unlock the bootloader properly, using LineageOS on an unauthorized device (such as upcoming Huawei devices) would be a pain. Google recently started requiring you to register a device with your account for every unauthorized device running Play Services (that is, a device that didn't get certified; certified devices running custom ROMs don't have this limitation) and apps might not show up. Netflix is not available for rooted devices, for example, and probably won't be on uncertified devices either.

I don't think it's the people who are worried about Huawei though; this whole thing reeks of US government power play, trying to protect US businesses over the backs of consumers.

[yifanl]

If you don't trust Huawei as a manufacturer, then logically you wouldn't trust them on the lower-level stuff anymore than the software layer.

[dagw]

The concerns of the people in the article isn't that Huawei is spying on them, its the uncertainty over how long they can keep using Google apps and Play services on the phone. While it's certainly possible to live a 'Google free' existence on and Android device, it's not something most Android users (certainly outside of China) are interested in.

[inawarminister]

I've heard that many (most?) recent Huawei phones bootloaders are not unlockable by design, so it's kind of hard to flash LOS on them.

[Leary]

They should ship them to China, where they are still selling like hot cakes.

[varjag]

Since they were shipped out of China in the first place, it means either the market is already saturated or margins there are worse.

[ngcc_hk]

You can’t use those USA app in china. Use chinese app ?

[theredbox]

This talks about other asian countries that dont use chinese alternatives.