Huawei Is Determined To Stick Around In The USA– There’s been some hot and unexpected smartphone news reaching the press in the past couple of days, but we suspect you missed it because all of the attention has been on the launch of a certain new Apple product.
That’s understandable. A new iPhone is always big news, and we understand how excited everybody is about it. You’ll find plenty of coverage of the iPhone 12 launch event elsewhere on our website and just about everywhere else on the entire internet, too.
Right here and now, we want to talk about something different – and that’s the fact that, against all odds, Huawei has found a way to launch another generation of its flagship phone in the United States of America and Europe.
The governments of the United States of America and the United Kingdom probably hoped that the company would have given up and retreated back to its home country by now.
It’s been over a year since President Donald Trump placed the company on the USA’s ‘entity list’ and expressly forbade US-based companies from doing business with it.
We’re also several months down the line from the United Kingdom banning Huawei from having access to the country’s 5G network or supplying hardware for the network’s infrastructure. In that instance, the ban extended as far as ordering companies to remove any Huawei equipment that had already been installed.
The ban in the US alone ought to have been curtains for Huawei’s western ambitions. It meant that Google couldn’t do any business with the company. In practical terms, it means that Huawei can’t access the latest version of Android, nor can it use Google’s app store or native apps. Huawei found a way around that problem.
The company now uses an ‘open source’ version of Android which, to most users at least, is indistinguishable from the official release.
Huawei Is Determined To Stick Around In The USA
They also created their own app store and implemented a ‘workaround’ method to allow customers to access Google’s apps that way. Huawei users can also download apps directly from the people who created them – a freedom that’s denied to anybody who owns an Apple device.
The question of who controls access to apps is one that’s been dragged through the courts at the moment because of the stand-off between Apple and Epic Games.
In the minds of many – and especially those who make apps – an app store should work in the same way that an online slots website does.
There, where a product is made available, any money made through that product is split between the website that hosts it and the company that made the online slots game. If a developer doesn’t like the terms that are being offered to them by one online slots website, they can go and agree to a deal with another one instead.
If Huawei phones operated on iOS
There are hundreds – perhaps even thousands – of excellent online slots websites like Money Reels in the world, and the competition between them is what makes the hugely competitive industry work.
Google has always been amenable to this approach, which is ultimately why the theoretical ban on Huawei having direct access to its apps and products didn’t work.
Apple disagrees, and in some people’s eyes, the company has created a monopoly in apps through iOS. If Huawei phones operated on iOS, the ban would have turned the phones into bricks.
Having solved the problem with apps, Huawei’s next job was to find a way to continue making the chips that power its handsets. The company doesn’t – and cannot – use Qualcomm chips like the majority of the smartphone industry does.
Instead, it uses Kirin chips, manufactured by HiSilicon. In reality, HiSilicon is the property of Huawei.
The subsidiary company has been affected by the international bans far more than its parent company has and can no longer order the parts that it needs to continue making the chips.
In fact, the production of Kirin chips has already ended, with the final batch being produced on September 15th. So far, Huawei hasn’t found a way around this issue.
Unable to make chips of its own, it will likely now have to find a new partner. This is something the company is likely to struggle with due to the sanctions that have been placed upon it.
While the chipset issue is a problem for the future, Huawei still has enough Kirin chips on hand to give us one more generation of its popular ‘Mate’ handset series. On October 22nd this year, Huawei will launch the Mate 40.
Huawei phone to launch in the USA and Europe
It’s probably the last smartphone that will ever be made with a Kirin chip inside it, and it might be the last Huawei phone to launch in the USA and Europe, but based on the limited amount of information that the company has made available ahead of the launch date it seems that if this is their last dance, they intend to make it a good one.
As we’ve seen in the past, there will be two models of the phone – the Mate 40 and the Mate 40 Pro. The ‘Pro’ phone is understood to have a 6.7-inch screen, with the smaller phone only slightly smaller at 6.5 inches. We’ve also seen suggestions that the handsets will cost $1400, which is at odds with the budget strategy that Huawei has employed in the past.
With the price point set so high, we’re expecting there to be some revolutionary capabilities within the phone to justify the price.
If there aren’t, the handset is likely to struggle to find an audience. It’s currently unknown whether the phones will be 5G compatible – although the marketing slogan – “leap further ahead,” implies that they will be.
The question of whether to purchase another Huawei phone is a difficult one, even for the company’s biggest fans. If the stories about the price are right, it won’t be a cheap investment, and the possibility that elements of the phone or its software will stop working during its lifetime because of political activity can’t be ruled out. Huawei Is Determined To Stick Around In The USA, did you find this article useful?
Unless something dramatic changes in the ear future – Joe Biden winning the US Presidency and re-evaluating the company’s relationship with China, for example – this might be a case of the wrong phone with the wrong price at the wrong time for a company that once appeared set to topple Apple and Samsung.
