The latest handsets launched by the Chinese tech company Huawei has come under question because of the restrictions being imposed on the company’s access to the Android operating system by the United States administration.
It is being expected that the most of the future launches of smartphones by Huawei would only be able to deliver a limited experience to customers unless the restrictions are resolved with the US government. This is off course considering that the company chooses to use the Android OS for its new smartphones.
But there is also some doubt about whether the restrictions on Huawei accessing Google services would be implemented in the long term.
It is being assumed that the US tech giant is not very keen to break up its business relation with the Chinese firm which is the second largest manufacturer of smartphones. Huawie recently said that its smartphones are used by more than half a billion consumers.
The ban on Huawei imposed by the US can be relaxed, at least in theory, by granting a license to Google to do business with Huawei or at least parts of the business commitments.
There are also those who are trying to ascertain the ways ahead for Huawei considering the restrictions on Google not being lifted at all.
As a consequence of the ban on Huawei, Google has suspended all of its business relations with Huawei that are related to "non-public" transfers of hardware, software and technical services. that does not effectively block all acce4ss of Huawei to Android because the core operating system is an open source project. It is possible for any manufacturer to install it on their devices without having to get permission after a modification.
But the issue is a lack of access to support from Google for the Android OS and the upgrades.
Experts said that the situation is not such that new apps or updates for Google services would suddenly not be available for owners of Huawei or Honor phones. This is because the Huawei devices have already been certified under processes known as the Compatibility Test Suite (CTS) and the Vendor Test Suite (VTS). This makes it possible for Google to provide Huawei phone owners with that certification with new versions of its products and allow for downloads from its Play marketplace and not need to deal directly with Huawei as a company.
Huawei is the third most popular brand after Apple and Samsung, according to analysts IDC.
But there would be an issue with respect to Google’s security updates. Typically, Android device-makers are given the code for Google’s software fixes about one month before it reveals details to the public about the issues that are to be addressed by the security updates. This one month time is given to manufacturers to allow them the chance to check that the patches do not cause problems for their own proprietary software.
The ban on Google now means that the one month time would no longer be available to Huawei and it would only come to know of the patches on the day they are released to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP).
The new phones launched by Huawei will not be certified and therefore the company would not be able to have Google Mobile Services (GMS) pre-installed. That could result in some functions of third party apps being lost on new Huawei phones.
"Let's say an app wants to send a notification to your device," Mishaal Rahman, editor-in-chief of the news site XDA-developers.com, said in a TV interview. "There's a really, really good chance that it's using Google Play Services for its push notification service. So any apps - even Twitter - could stop working with push notifications."
(Sourec:www.bbc.com)
It is being expected that the most of the future launches of smartphones by Huawei would only be able to deliver a limited experience to customers unless the restrictions are resolved with the US government. This is off course considering that the company chooses to use the Android OS for its new smartphones.
But there is also some doubt about whether the restrictions on Huawei accessing Google services would be implemented in the long term.
It is being assumed that the US tech giant is not very keen to break up its business relation with the Chinese firm which is the second largest manufacturer of smartphones. Huawie recently said that its smartphones are used by more than half a billion consumers.
The ban on Huawei imposed by the US can be relaxed, at least in theory, by granting a license to Google to do business with Huawei or at least parts of the business commitments.
There are also those who are trying to ascertain the ways ahead for Huawei considering the restrictions on Google not being lifted at all.
As a consequence of the ban on Huawei, Google has suspended all of its business relations with Huawei that are related to "non-public" transfers of hardware, software and technical services. that does not effectively block all acce4ss of Huawei to Android because the core operating system is an open source project. It is possible for any manufacturer to install it on their devices without having to get permission after a modification.
But the issue is a lack of access to support from Google for the Android OS and the upgrades.
Experts said that the situation is not such that new apps or updates for Google services would suddenly not be available for owners of Huawei or Honor phones. This is because the Huawei devices have already been certified under processes known as the Compatibility Test Suite (CTS) and the Vendor Test Suite (VTS). This makes it possible for Google to provide Huawei phone owners with that certification with new versions of its products and allow for downloads from its Play marketplace and not need to deal directly with Huawei as a company.
Huawei is the third most popular brand after Apple and Samsung, according to analysts IDC.
But there would be an issue with respect to Google’s security updates. Typically, Android device-makers are given the code for Google’s software fixes about one month before it reveals details to the public about the issues that are to be addressed by the security updates. This one month time is given to manufacturers to allow them the chance to check that the patches do not cause problems for their own proprietary software.
The ban on Google now means that the one month time would no longer be available to Huawei and it would only come to know of the patches on the day they are released to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP).
The new phones launched by Huawei will not be certified and therefore the company would not be able to have Google Mobile Services (GMS) pre-installed. That could result in some functions of third party apps being lost on new Huawei phones.
"Let's say an app wants to send a notification to your device," Mishaal Rahman, editor-in-chief of the news site XDA-developers.com, said in a TV interview. "There's a really, really good chance that it's using Google Play Services for its push notification service. So any apps - even Twitter - could stop working with push notifications."
(Sourec:www.bbc.com)
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