[UPDATE 23/9/2019 4:41pm] Looks like Huawei now has “no plans” to let users unlock the bootloader.
Huawei’s brand new Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro launched to much fanfare in Munich earlier this week and it was very well received. It’s got incredible specs, a tantalising new camera system and a design that I will very generously call “recognisable”. I haven’t quite made up my mind on whether I liked it or not yet, but it’s definitely distinctive.
However, the big question mark about Huawei’s new smartphones has to do with its software. With the US ban, and all that, a lot of questions arose around whether the phone would ship with Google services. For now, we can’t really say anything about that, but reports we come across today indicate that Huawei is prepared for this.
According to Android Authority, Huawei CEO Richard Yu says that the Mate 30 Pro’s bootloader will be user unlockable. This is seems like a pretty desperate move from Huawei considering their previous stance on unlockable bootloaders being a security risk.
I suppose the fact that the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro won’t be shipping with Google apps is enough to force Huawei’s hand here. In any case, that’s just an assumption, but the fact remains that with an unlockable bootloader, it will be much easier for users to sideload applications that would otherwise be impossible without access to Google Services.
Of course, the problem I have here is that these things with unlocking bootloaders and sideloading applications–they aren’t really something mainstream consumers do. And I personally haven’t done something like this in so long that I’m not confident I’ll be able to do it properly without a detailed step-by-step guide.
And while that might have been fine on non-mainstream smartphones, stuff that enthusiasts might pick up to tinker around with, I don’t think it’ll fly with mainstream users who are the Mate 30 Pro’s main audience.
What do you guys think? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
