It’s a been a pretty stressful time for Huawei P30 Pro owners recently. Last week the temporary license that had enabled Google to continue to supply older Huawei smartphones, like the best-selling P30 Pro series, with security patches and new features expired.
For those who don’t know, the White House placed Chinese firm Huawei on the US Entity List trade blacklist back in May 2019. American companies cannot do business with any firms listed on the US Entity List trade blacklist.
Unfortunately for Huawei fans that meant Californian company Google was unable to provide software or apps to Huawei for its latest smartphones and tablets. That meant Google apps, such as YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail, and the Google Play Store – which hosts millions of third-party apps, like Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Netflix, and more, as well as ebooks, movie rentals, and music, couldn’t be used on the latest Huawei gadgets straight out of the box.
But while the Huawei P40 series shipped with an open-source version of Android with no sign of Google Maps, YouTube or Gmail… thankfully, a special license was issued to ensured Google could still release new features and important security updates on Huawei devices released prior to the blacklist, like the P30 Pro.
After extending this license a number of times, The Washington Post reported that it had finally expired – with no further extensions planned – last week. This led to speculation that Google would finally stop providing updates to Huawei-branded gadgets. As such, P30 Pro owners could find their access to the Google Play Store revoked – as well as losing out on the latest security fixes and features.
Thankfully, anyone who recently signed-up to a contract with a handset, like the P30 Pro – or the P30 Pro New Edition, which launched back in June with a few slight tweaks on the original P30 Pro from March 2019, can sleep a little easier tonight. That’s because Huawei has confirmed devices that were previously covered by the license will still be supported despite the piece of paper having expired.
Google has yet to comment on the situation, but we’d like to think the Mountain View-based company had been consulted before Huawei confirmed that P30 Pro and P30 Pro New Edition smartphone owners could still be able to download apps from the Play Store, navigate using Google Maps, watch videos on YouTube and more.
With continued support seemingly confirmed, the year-old P30 Pro and recently-refreshed P30 Pro New Edition still represent a better investment than the latest flagship smartphone from the company, the Huawei P40 Pro.
While the latter boasts an improved camera system, sleek new design, and more power under the bonnet… none of that really matters when you don’t have easy access to your favourite apps.
While Huawei’s AppGallery (its answer to the Google Play Store) does include a number of high-profile apps, including TikTok, Tinder, Trainline, Amazon, and Asphalt …there are a number of pretty colossal absentees, such as Twitter, Facebook, BBC iPlayer, and Netflix, to name a few.
While you can download some of these from other Android app repositories online, this involves disabling a number of security features within the settings – meaning you’ll take more risks than downloading from a curated app store, like Huawei AppGallery or Google Play Store. Given the recent spate of warnings to Android smartphone owners from security researchers… this doesn’t seem like a sensible choice
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Source: express
