Don’t panic even if Google has blocked Huawei from Android updates

The news shook Huawei users today. Google announced that it has suspended access by Huawei to updates of its Android operating system as well as its proprietary apps and services. This was Google’s response to orders from the U.S. government as it sought to blacklist Huawei. Even chipmakers like Intel Corp., Qualcomm, Xilinx Inc. and Broadcom Inc. have told their employees that they will not supply Huawei till further notice

Should Huawei users panic now? No. At least not yet. All existing Huawei smartphones will still continue to work like before. Here’s @Android’s tweet made today, May 20, 2019:

I’ve been checking several tech articles and based on what I’ve gathered so far, here are the effects of Google’s announcement:

• Google Play and security features of Google Play Protect will remain on existing devices
• Huawei will continue to have access to the open source or public version of Android (Android Open Source Project or AOSP) which is free for the public to use. It will also continue to provide security updates and after-sales services to all its existing phones. Huawei phones using Android Pie will still work. However,  when the next version of Android (Android Q) is released by Google, Huawei will no longer have access.
• Current Huawei users will still be able to download app updates via Google Play.
• Future versions of Huawei smartphones outside China would lose access to Google’s proprietary applications and services including Google Play Store, Maps, and Gmail. Technical support and collaboration will halt as well.

Just recently, Huawei went on full blown marketing mode for its new P30 model which has gotten a lot of good reviews, especially for its rear cameras which are highly sharp and clear even for distant objects. People who bought the P30 as well as other Huawei models can still be assured that they can access security updates from Google Play, at least for the foreseeable future.

What may not yet be too clear, however, is how future sales of Huawei smartphones will be affected. It will be a challenge down the road to convince people to buy a Huawei smartphone if it will not have Google’s proprietary apps and services like Chrome, Gmail, Google Drive (Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc), Maps, YouTube, and more.

Huawei has supposedly been preparing for just such a situation and the contingency plan includes developing its own operating system for Android and Windows as well as stockpiling chips. We may know more about these contingency plans in the coming days.

I guess for now, the hope of every Huawei smartphone user is that there would be minimal disruption of Google services that they are currently using.

(Update: May 21, 2019 – After the U.S. Commerce Department announced that it had granted a 90-day license for mobile phone manufacturers and internet broadband providers to continue working with Huawei, Google announced it would continue sending Android updates to Huawei for the same 90-day period.)