HUAWEI will not unlock its bootloader on the Mate 30 phones. Ouch.
Despite HUAWEI CEO Richard Yu briefly mentioning that there are plans to let consumers unlock the bootloader to unofficially download Google services onto the phones, a HUAWEI spokesperson has clarified the situation, confirming that Android users won’t be able to sideload Google Play Services on the new HUAWEI phones.
HUAWEI wasn’t successful in getting the essential licenses for its Mate 30 devices, which is why Google Play Services and other Google apps weren’t pre-installed into the phone. However, users remained hopeful, thinking that they could just ‘root’ the phone and download the Google apps by themselves. But with the recent announcement, it looks like all hopes are lost.
There might be changes in the future, but for now it just means no Google for Huawei Mate 30 users. Of course, they can still download apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and more but in the meantime, they’ll also be lacking apps like YouTube, Gmail and Google Drive.
At the moment, the only alternative to Google Play for Mate 30 users would be HUAWEI’s AppGallery. If HUAWEI is permanently banned from Google services, it’s likely that the company will expand its HarmonyOS — currently only for IoT devices — to its future smartphones.