Chinese smartphone brands have become a gigantic phenomenon in recent years. Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Huawei are now some of the biggest smartphone brands in terms of raw shipments and sales, with all four brands accounting for over 40% of all smartphone shipments globally. And their presence in the Asian, European, and South American continents have risen to all-time highs. But these companies are, for the most part, forced to bend the knee to Google whenever possible as the Google Play Store and Google Mobile Services are essential parts of the Android experience. It seems, however, that these brands are now seeking some independence from Google as they are working together on an “app store alliance” of sorts.

Reuters’ report on this matter talks about a “Global Developer Service Alliance” or GDSA, where developers will be able to upload an app simultaneously on these brands’ respective app stores. While the report doesn’t immediately talk about a single Play Store alternative, all 4 app stores having the same content and backend would essentially make them the same app store. These 4 brands already have their own app stores up and running, as devices launched in mainland China don’t have Google Play Services, so this move would simply unify them. This move may have been fueled by Huawei’s US sanctions: the company is banned from doing business with US companies and therefore they can’t use Google services at all, forcing them to seek alternatives.,

As we said before, all of these companies are huge by their own right, so having them join forces could potentially mean trouble for Google’s grip on Android in overseas markets. Oppo and Vivo are both owned by BBK Electronics, which also owns OnePlus and Realme–the report doesn’t say whether these 2 brands would be joining the alliance, with OnePlus strengthening their US carrier presence and Realme putting heat under Xiaomi’s feet in India.

Source: Reuters

Update: Xiaomi’s Statement

Xiaomi’s statement:

“The Global Developer Service Alliance solely serves to facilitate the uploading of apps by developers to respective app stores of Xiaomi, OPPO and Vivo simultaneously. There’s no competing interest between this service and Google Play Store.”

The important message here is that Xiaomi and others are not trying to “compete” with the Google Play Store. The goal of the Global Developer Service Alliance is to make it much simpler for developers to upload apps to the bevy of app markets in China.

The current app market situation in China is very fragmented. Since there is no Play Store, nearly every OEM and major company maintains its own app market. This makes it very difficult for non-Chinese developers to understand the market and get their apps to millions of potential users. Many apps never get an official release in these Chinese app markets, leading to piracy and no revenue for the owners.

The Global Developer Service Alliance would make it so non-Chinese developers only have two app markets to worry about: the Play Store and this new initiative.

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The Huawei FreeBuds 3 were released back in September as the company’s latest truly wireless earbuds. They feature active noise cancellation and an Apple AirPods-esque design. At launch, the FreeBuds 3 came in two simple colors: white and black. Today, Huawei is announcing a new red option.

The FreeBuds 3 Red are the same great FreeBuds in a vibrant new color for Valentine’s Day. As mentioned, they feature active noise cancellation, which filters out background noise and enhances voice output during calls. This works despite having an open-fit design, which doesn’t create a seal in your ear.

Like any good earbuds, the FreeBuds 3 have a charging case. The case can provide up to 20 hours of battery life and can be charged wirelessly or through USB-C. The earbuds alone can get around 4 hours of music playback. The new red color can be purchased from Huawei’s website in select countries for €179.

Source: Huawei

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Huawei announced its Mate 30 series of smartphones at the end of last year. They bring breakthrough improvements and developments such as a waterfall display in the case of the Mate 30 Pro, all of which set the phones apart from a crowd of phones that, for the most part, all look the same. But there is one incredibly big issue with these phones, as well as with all of Huawei’s latest phones: They don’t include Google Mobile Services. This isn’t a deliberate decision by the company, though. Because of U.S. trade sanctions, Google isn’t allowed to enter into new Android licensing agreements with Huawei. That’s why the phone has yet to see a major global release outside of a handful of countries in Asia. But it seems that Huawei will be pulling ahead with a Western launch anyway since the Mate 30 Pro will now be launching in the UK later this month.

Huawei Mate 30 Pro XDA Forums

British users interested in this device should know that it won’t carry Google apps when it launches in the UK, which might be a deal-breaker for some people more than others. For those who don’t mind the lack of Google apps, you get all the bells and whistles that come with the Chinese version, including the flagship-grade HiSilicon Kirin 990 processor, the award-winning Leica quad rear camera setup, face unlocking, the waterfall “Horizon” display, and much more. The device also comes with Android 10 out of the box with EMUI 10’s skin on top and Huawei’s AppGallery as the app store alternative to Google Play, as well as Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) to replace most Google services. Although the phone doesn’t come with Google Mobile Services out-of-the-box, it may still be possible to sideload the applications, albeit in a rather convoluted matter. We won’t go into detail here, but there are tutorials on the net that involve restoring a backup from a Mate 30 Pro that had previously used a (now-shuttered) GMS Installer.

The device will retail for £899 and it will be available exclusively through Carphone Warehouse in the Space Silver variant. Users who buy the device will also receive a Huawei Watch GT 2 and a pair of Huawei FreeBuds 3 free with their purchase. Pre-registrations are opening today, and the device is expected to ship starting on February 20th.

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Depending on who you ask, Huawei is either the world’s second or third largest smartphone brand in the world, surpassing even Apple during some previous fiscal quarters. Their impressive growth was achieved even without releasing a smartphone on a major mobile carrier in the U.S., though not for lack of trying. While it’s clear that the company hasn’t given up their ambitions to expand into the United States, their plans to do so may have become jeopardized. Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer, Wanzhou Meng, who is also the daughter of the company’s founder, was arrested in Canada on December 1st and is facing extradition to the United States for allegedly aiding in violating U.S.’ sanctions on Iran.

We learned that Huawei was under investigation for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions on Iran earlier this year. Evading Iran sanctions is what ZTE was found guilty of earlier this year, which resulted in the company being banned from doing business with key partners in the U.S. The actions of the Iran sanction violators in ZTE brought the company to its knees until the ban was lifted following a $1 billion payment to the U.S. government and a lot of negotiations. U.S. government officials are barred from using ZTE or Huawei devices for official communication, so this is just the next step in the ongoing disputes between the U.S. Government and Huawei.

In the worst case scenario, Huawei may find themselves in the same position as ZTE once was – unable to use Qualcomm hardware and a possibility of losing their license to sell devices with Android pre-installed. ZTE’s smartphone and telecommunications businesses were heavily disrupted because of their reliance on suppliers that do business in the U.S. Although Huawei notably does not source their devices’ mobile platforms from Qualcomm (instead opting to do their own chip development in-house via HiSilicon), their position as second-or-third smartphone device maker may be in jeopardy if they lose their license to distribute devices with Android pre-installed. We’ve known for years that Huawei has developed their own in-house mobile operating system as an insurance, so it’s possible the company could shift their products to this new OS if things go south.

If the allegations are true and the best case scenario plays out for Huawei, it’s possible that the company will only receive a slap on the wrist in the form of fines, a forced firing of the involved employees, and other less-costly punitive measures. This is because the Chinese government sees Huawei as an incredibly important asset as Huawei is the country’s largest company that operates globally. For their part, Chinese government officials from the Chinese embassy in Canada have already demanded that Meng be released. Huawei issued a statement to Bloomberg stating that “[t]he company has been provided very little information regarding the charges and is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng.” For now, Huawei is playing it safe and “believes the Canadian and U.S. legal systems will ultimately reach a just conclusion.”

Source: Axios, Bloomberg

Update: New Charges

The US Justice Department has indicted both Huawei and CFO Meng Wanzhou for racketeering and conspiring to steal American trade secrets. Meng was arrested in Canada back in December of 2018. This indictment adds 16 counts of conspiracy to the existing charges.

Huawei and Meng are being accused of trying to steal the intellectual property of US businesses for nearly 20 years. The DOJ’s press release specifically mentions “source code and user manuals for internet routers, antenna technology, and robot testing technology.” According to the indictment, Huawei obtained this information through confidential agreements with American companies.

“Huawei’s efforts to steal trade secrets and other sophisticated U.S. technology were successful. Huawei was able to drastically cut its research and development costs and associated delays, giving the company a significant and unfair competitive advantage.”

As mentioned in the original article from 2018, Huawei is accused of collaborating with North Korea and Iran, which are subject to US and European sanctions. The DOJ claims Huawei was also attempting to “conceal” it’s involvement with those countries. Huawei has not yet issued a statement on these new charges.

Source: Department of Justice | Via: Reuters

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Huawei is among the most valued Chinese companies and one which has an empire fanning out in all directions. Besides claiming the number two spot in terms of smartphone sales worldwide, Huawei is among the leading suppliers for telecommunication equipment and a driving force in the adoption of 5G. But for certain reasons, the company has been under the gunsight of the Trump administration, which has repeatedly alleged that Huawei’s smartphones and telecom equipment are potentially being used for espionage. Citing founder Ren Zhengfei’s previous association with the Chinese army, the U.S. government has barred government agencies as well as their private contractors from using any Huawei product, and also pursued allies to do the same.

With escalating diplomatic tension between the two countries, President Trump declared a national emergency and passed an executive order to restrict companies in the U.S. from supplying products to Huawei last week. While the Chinese giant claimed to have a decent stockpile of hardware goods and seemingly felt at ease even with these restrictions in place, a recent disclosure from Google puts Huawei’s prominence in the market at stake. As part of the blacklisting by the government, Google has removed Huawei from the Android partner program, suggesting that the latter will no longer have “access to proprietary apps and services from Google,” Reuters reported.

Google is currently “reviewing the implications” of the executive order from the White House, but for now, Huawei will reportedly be unable to install Google Play Service on the smartphones henceforth. The crackdown bars Huawei from applying for evaluation of devices under the Compatibility Test Suite (CTS), which any OEM must pass to be able to use the Android branding on its devices and provide services like the Google Play Store, YouTube, Google Search, Chrome, etc. out-of-the-box.

Huawei’s latest flagship, the Huawei P30 Pro

Users will not be able to just side-load APKs for these services because Google prohibits CTS-unverified devices from running its apps. Besides Google apps, all the others that use Google’s APIs, to facilitate log-in, for instance, will also be blocked on smartphones by Huawei and sub-brand Honor.

For the existing Huawei devices, Google has confirmed users will continue to be able to update apps through the Google Play Store. However, the blacklisting also prohibits Huawei and Honor from sending out newer updates to their smartphones, and if it does, it will be forced to remove Google Play Services and Google apps from the existing devices too.

For Huawei users' questions regarding our steps to comply w/ the recent US government actions: We assure you while we are complying with all US gov't requirements, services like Google Play & security from Google Play Protect will keep functioning on your existing Huawei device.

— Android (@Android) May 20, 2019

As a result of this ban, Huawei will not have access to the code for monthly Google security patches before the public release. Furthermore, Huawei and Honor can no longer be a member of the Android beta programs starting with the next commercial release of Android i.e. Android R. If Huawei intends to move ahead with updates and brings users onboard the Android R bandwagon, it will have to wait until the public release which happens around August every year.

Fundamentally, the only way Huawei can now continue using Android onto its smartphones is building its own custom version of Android using AOSP (Android Open Source Project) code, exactly how developers of custom ROMs do. Unlike custom ROMs, however, Huawei might not be able to strap GApps along with the package without going unnoticed by Google.

All in all, the situation is really bad for Huawei. The only plausible option it has for now is to either finally start rolling out its own operating system that it has reportedly been working on, in the anticipation of the day when the U.S. finally obstructs its usage of Android. That might be a challenging shift since most Huawei users are habitual of Android and the Google ecosystem. But, so long as the operating system resembles Android in terms of experience and allows the installation of Google apps, it should be useful. However, we haven’t seen any previews yet, which means that it might not be ready for use just yet.

Alternatively, Huawei could continue to tinker with Android and use AOSP builds to continue providing EMUI updates. However, in that case, it will not be able to support Google Play Services and other Google apps. This will limit the users to rely on Huawei’s AppGallery, which has a relatively smaller number of apps, even though that wouldn’t resolve the issue with Google apps.

Overall, the condition is really limiting for Huawei, essentially confining it to China, where Google’s services are already banned by law. This executive order crushes Huawei and Honor’s presence, not just in the U.S.,  but basically every market where devices are shipped with Google services pre-installed. Given that the U.S. government already has a strict view of the company, we do not expect any relief in the coming months. Earlier, Huawei had also shared its plans to sue the U.S. government but a favorable decision may take several months or even years.

For now, this step reeks of the upcoming death of another smartphone giant.

Update 1: Qualcomm, Intel, Xilinx, Broadcom break trade ties with Huawei

After the report of Google limiting its software exchange with Huawei, American chipmakers Qualcomm, Broadcom, Xilinx, and Intel have announced that they will cede to the executive order by the U.S. government and limit supplies to Huawei. Huawei “is heavily dependent on U.S. semiconductor products and would be seriously crippled without supply of key U.S. components,” analyst Ryan Koontz told Bloomberg. As mentioned above, Huawei does seem to have stockpiled enough chips to keep production going for the next three months. However, the ban may take longer to be lifted.

Among the four chipmakers, Intel Huawei’s the primary supplier for chips used in its data centers. Additionally, Intel also provides processors for Huawei’s Matebook series of laptops. Qualcomm sells it Snapdragon SoCs for various entry-level devices like the Honor 8C as well as some network chips. Qualcomm also licenses aptX codec for Bluetooth audio to Huawei. Meanwhile, Xilinx provides programmable chips for networking while Broadcom supplies packet switching chips for telecom equipment.

In all, there are more than 30 companies in the U.S. considered as “core suppliers” by the company, and all of them are likely to follow the same route.

Update 2: Official response

Following the debacle, the Chinese company has officially shared a response on the matter. Here’s how it goes:

“Huawei has made substantial contributions to the development and growth of Android around the world. As one of Android’s key global partners, we have worked closely with their open-source platform to develop an ecosystem that has benefitted both users and the industry.

Huawei will continue to provide security updates and after sales services to all existing Huawei and Honor smartphone and tablet products covering those have been sold or still in stock globally.

We will continue to build a safe and sustainable software ecosystem, in order to provide the best experience for all users globally.”

Source: WinFuture

Update 3: Honor 20 Launch unaffected

Huawei’s Honor has announced that in spite of the on-going turmoil between the U.S. government and the rescinding act from Google and other partner corporations, tomorrow’s launch of the Honor 20 series in London remains unaffected.

Update 4: Huawei Granted Temporary License

Barely 24 hours after news broke that Google revoked Huawei’s Android license, plunging the tech sphere into chaos, the U.S. Commerce Department told Reuters that Huawei will be granted a “temporary general license.” This license, which lasts until August 19th, allows Huawei to “maintain existing networks and provide software updates to existing Huawei handsets.” The license does not allow U.S. companies to work with Huawei on new products, however.

To be clear, this temporary license only grants Huawei a reprieve from the U.S. trade ban. We have yet to see if Google has temporarily restored Huawei’s Android license, though that’s likely going to happen given that the alternative is chaos and uncertainty for hundreds of millions of Android users worldwide. If Huawei is once again allowed to become a GMS Partner, then the company can proceed with releasing its planned updates on schedule.

Although Huawei likely has much of its work already completed for the next EMUI version based on Android Q, it’s unlikely the company will release the update if it cannot ship Google Play apps and services with the release. We’ll have to wait and see what happens to Huawei after August 19th.

Update: The full text of the Temporary General License can be found here. Thanks Roland Quandt!

Update 5: Working ‘closely’ with Google

After the U.S. Commerce Department gave the Chinese manufacturer some temporary relief, it hit back at the U.S. for its bias. Calling this an act of “bullying” by the Trump-led U.S. government, Huawei told Reuters that it is working “closely with Google” to understand the impact of the ban as well as to work out a solution in order to mitigate the impact on consumers.

Abraham Liu, Huawei’s chief representative to the EU Institutions and VP for the European Region, told media that Google has “zero motivation to block us.” He remarked, ” it is an attack on the liberal, rules-based order.”

The episode has taken an interesting turn in less than two days and we promise to keep you updated at every single step.

Source: Reuters

Update 6: Google reverses decision

Following the U.S. Commerce Department’s decision to grant mobile phone companies a 90-day license to work with Huawei, Google has reversed their decision. The company will now send software updates to Huawei phones until August 19th.

“Keeping phones up to date and secure is in everyone’s best interests and this temporary license allows us to continue to provide software updates and security patches to existing models for the next 90 days.” – Google spokesperson

The Commerce Department will reassess the situation after the 90-day license expires. At that point, Google will most likely make the same assessment and decide how to move forward. For the time being at least, Huawei’s Android phones are safe.

Source: CNBC

Update 7: Carriers dropping Huawei

UK carriers EE and Vodafone have dropped Huawei phones from their 5G launch plans. Both carriers were planning to launch the Huawei Mate X 5G with their 5G network rollout. The carriers point to long-term usability for their customers as a reason for pulling the device.

On top of the UK carriers, SoftBank in Japan and Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan have also dropped Huawei devices, including the Huawei P30 Lite and Huawei P20 Lite. South Korea’s KT is also considering halting sales and NTT Docomo in Japan has halted pre-orders of the Huawei P30 Pro.

Source: The Verge / Source: Nikkei Asian Review

Update 8: Removed from Android Enterprise Recommended

Android Enterprise Recommended is Google’s program for certifying devices that are considered secure and safe for enterprise. Google has now removed all Huawei devices from the website, including the old Nexus 6P. Other devices that were in this list included the Huawei Mate 10, Huawei P10, Huawei Mate 20, and the MediaPad M5 tablet.

Source: 9to5Google

Update 9: Huawei answers questions

Huawei has responded to a number of common rumors on the Huawei Answers page. You can read them below.

Update 10: Huawei devices have been added back to the Android Enterprise Recommended website

In a strange turn of events, Huawei devices have been added back to the Android Enterprise Recommended website. Devices that have been re-added so far include the Huawei Mate 20 X and Honor devices like the Honor 20 Pro.

What makes this development strange is the fact that the US Government was still yet to make a decision on the pending license applications from US companies to resume business with Huawei. Google is also quite opaque with its additions to and removals from the Enterprise website, so we are not entirely sure about what is happening here. We’ll keep our readers updated if the trade ban has been lifted or if Google has been granted a further license.

Source: Android Enterprise Recommended

Update 11: Temporary License Extended

Originally reported by Reuters last week, it is now confirmed that the US Commerce Department is postponing the trade ban on Huawei for 90 more days. The temporary license that allows US companies to continue working with Huawei was set to expire today.

“As we continue to urge consumers to transition away from Huawei’s products, we recognize that more time is necessary to prevent any disruption. Simultaneously, we are constantly working at the Department to ensure that any exports to Huawei and its affiliates do not violate the terms of the Entity Listing or Temporary General License.”

– Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce

46 additional Huawei affiliates are said to have also been added to the entity list, though that has not been confirmed. Huawei has not yet released a statement on the situation.

Source: CNET

Update 12: Temporary General License Extended (Again)

Unsurprisingly, the Trump administration has extended Huawei’s Temporary General License for another 90 days, according to Reuters. This will allow the Chinese tech giant to continue working with U.S. companies in a limited capacity. The goal of the initial Temporary General License extension was to minimize the harm on network operators in rural America, as many were dependent on Huawei for telecommunications equipment. This new extension, per Reuters, was intended to only last for 2 weeks but was extended to another 90 days due to unspecified “bureaucratic issues.” The Trump administration has still not decided whether they will grant individual U.S. companies licenses to sell components to Huawei, however. The ban is now postponed until February 16, 2020, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see yet another extension come next year.

In terms of Huawei’s smartphone business, the extension of the TGL means they can continue to support existing devices but cannot launch new devices with Google certification.

Update 13: Temporary General License Extended (Once Again)

Unsurprisingly (again), the Trump administration has extended Huawei’s Temporary General License once more. However, this extension is only for 45 days, as reported by CNet, which is half the period of previous extensions.

“The license is being extended to prevent interruption of existing network communication systems in rural U.S. regions and permit global network security measures. The 45-day extension is necessary to allow existing telecommunication providers — particularly those in rural US communities — the ability to continue to temporarily and securely operate existing networks while they identify alternatives to Huawei for future operation.”

The ban is now postponed until March 31, 2020, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see yet another extension, albeit of a smaller duration.

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For close to a year, Huawei has been trying to stay competitive despite dire US sanctions hitting them very hard for certain regions. The company was placed on the Department of Commerce’s Entity List, meaning that US companies are barred from exporting products to Huawei. This sole fact by itself is already pretty devastating, as Huawei is blocked from conducting any business with Google, the company behind Android development and Google Play services (software is also considered an export), as well as with companies like Qualcomm. But for the most part, the company has managed to stay afloat, mainly in part thanks to the fact that they can source most of their components from places outside the US and they have access to Android since it’s open-source software.

Now, though, the company may be facing serious trouble as the Trump administration keeps trying to intervene in the company’s affairs with non-US companies, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The newest measures against Huawei, which have reportedly been drafted but are still far from being approved, might come in the form of a modification to the Foreign Direct Product Rule, which oversees foreign-made goods based on American technology. Under this proposal, foreign companies using American chipmaking equipment would need to seek a license from the US government before supplying equipment to Huawei.

Such a restriction could have catastrophic consequences for Huawei as a whole. One of the companies that would be affected by this is TSMC, which uses American chipmaking equipment while being based in Taiwan. Huawei has managed to keep putting out smartphones since the entirety of their lineup uses HiSilicon Kirin processors, designed in-house by Huawei, instead of Qualcomm processors. The problem is, however, that Kirin chips, such as the Kirin 990 powering the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro, are manufactured by TSMC. If the US government goes forward with this, then this would effectively cut Huawei’s chip supply completely, thus hampering the company’s ability to manufacture and ship new devices almost completely.

TSMC is just a manufacturer, though, and it is Huawei themselves, through its subsidiary HiSilicon, who owns the chip’s designs. So can they just go to another chipset maker, such as Samsung Foundries? The answer is — it’s complicated. The new measure is not specific to any company in particular, and if Samsung Foundries is using US chipmaking equipment, then they would also be affected by this change. It is almost certain, however, that Huawei would have a hard time going forward if this change is approved, as the same report takes cognizance of a claim that there are no production lines in China that use only equipment made in China, making it difficult to produce any chipsets without U.S. equipment.

Huawei is right in the middle of the United States-China trade war, with the US government having major concerns regarding Huawei because of charges such as spying. As of now, though, these new sanctions have not entered into effect yet as they are just a draft right now, but we’ll keep you in the loop on any new developments regarding this story.

Source: Reuters

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MWC 2020 has been canceled, but that isn’t stopping companies from making announcements this week. We didn’t quite know what to expect from Huawei and it turns out they have announced their next foldable, the Mate XS, and the MatePad Pro 5G tablet. Both devices have been known for some time, but they have seen some changes and are now launching for global markets.

Huawei Mate XS

via @AdamConwayIE

The Mate XS is the follow-up to last year’s Mate X, which never made it off the ground in a meaningful way. Huawei’s take on a foldable phone is different from others in that the display is on the outside when folded. There’s no need for a smaller secondary display as the full display wraps around the outside.

Of course, this poses some durability issues. As we’ve seen with foldable displays that fold inwards, it doesn’t take much to scratch plastic. Huawei claims the Mate XS has a more durable display and a redesigned hinge. The display uses “quad-layer” construction. The display is composed of two layers of polyamide film, followed by the flexible OLED display, a soft polymer for cushion, and finally a layer that connects the display to the body.

The hinge is said to feel smoother than the previous iteration and should be more durable as well. As expected, other improvements include the Kirin 990 processor and its integrated 5G modem. The Mate XS has 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 4,500 mAh battery.

Camera-wise, the Huawei Mate XS is packing a main 40MP camera, an 8MP telephoto camera, a 16MP wide-angle camera, and a depth-sensing camera. All of these cameras are housed on the “rear,” but when the screen is folded they can face the user. Speaking of the display again, it’s 8-inches in tablet mode and 6.6-inches when folded.

The Mate XS does not have Google apps since Huawei is still on the US’s entity list. Instead, it includes Huawei Mobile Services, which is the company’s alternative to Google Play Services. You can read more about that here. The Mate XS will be released outside of China in March for €2,499 (~$2,700).

Huawei MatePad Pro 5G

Huawei launched the MatePad Pro in China last year. The device features very slim bezels, a 10.8-inch display, and an optional keyboard case and stylus. Today, the company has announced a 5G version of the tablet. Like the Mate XS, the MatePad Pro 5G does not ship with Google apps. Users are limited to using Huawei’s alternative.

Huawei is claiming the MatePad Pro 5G is the first tablet to support wireless charging, which is certainly not true, but it is rare. Wireless charging speeds can go up to 27W, plus it has reverse wireless charging up to 7.5W. The tablet can use reverse wireless charging to charge the keyboard case and stylus, which is handy.

The display has a resolution of 2560 x 1600 and there is a hole-punch in the top left corner for the front-facing camera. Powering everything is the Kirin 990 processor, 8GB of RAM, up to 512GB of storage, and a big 7,250mAh battery. Huawei is also selling WiFi-only and 4G models with 6GB of RAM, 128GB, and 256GB of storage options.

The Huawei MatePad Pro 5G will be available in June in China, Asia Pacific, EMEA, and Latin America. The WiFi and 4G models will go on sale in April in selected markets including Asia Pacific, EMEA, Russia, Japan, and Latin America. Pricing for the 5G model starts at €799 ($867), while the WiFi model starts at €549 ($596), and the 4G model starts at €599 ($650).

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MWC 2020 may not be happening this week, but we’ve already had a number of product announcements. Huawei and Sony have revealed a few devices so far, and we have forums open for them. You can check out the forums for the Huawei MatePad Pro, Huawei Mate XS, Sony Xperia 1 II, and Sony Xperia 10 II.

Huawei revealed their next foldable phone, the Mate XS. The display is said to be more durable this time around and the hinge has been redesigned as well. It’s also more powerful with the Kirin 990. The other Huawei device is a little less exciting as it’s a 5G version of the MatePad Pro, which launched last year. It has a 10.8-inch display and works with a handy keyboard case and stylus.

Huawei Mate XS XDA Forums | Huawei MatePad Pro XDA Forums

Sony, on the other hand, announced two new smartphones: the Xperia 1 II and the Xperia 10 II. The Xperia 1 II is the flagship offering with a 6.5-inch display, Snapdragon 865 SoC, 8GB of RAM, and triple rear cameras. The Xperia 10 II is more on the mid-range side of things with a 6-inch display, Snapdragon 665 SoC, 4GB of RAM, and triple year cameras. Both devices have Sony’s now typical 21:9 aspect ratios.

Sony Xperia 1 II XDA Forums | Sony Xperia 10 II XDA Forums

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It’s the year of foldable smartphones, it seems. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, a Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 in the works, the Motorola RAZR, and now the Huawei Mate Xs want a slice of the pie. Huawei is no stranger to foldable smartphones, though their first device, the Huawei Mate X, only ever launched in China. Its successor, the Mate Xs, just got announced in Barcelona, and we got to spend some hands-on time with it. The foldable Mate Xs does not have Google Mobile Services pre-installed since Huawei is still on the U.S.’s Entity List. Instead, the device includes Huawei Mobile Services, which is the company’s alternative to Google Play Services. Despite this setback, Huawei is going full steam ahead without Google and with their own vision on what foldable smartphones should look like.

Huawei Mate Xs Forums

Specifications

The Huawei Mate Xs is definitely top-tier when it comes to specifications, though you’d hope that’s the case at a price of €2,499. Huawei’s take on the foldable form factor is different than Samsung’s or Motorola’s. Huawei’s devices involve a display that wraps around the outside, rather than being protected on the inside of some kind of a clamshell design. The Mate Xs has a plastic screen that doesn’t feel any different from the Huawei Mate X. In contrast, the new Galaxy Z Flip notably features an ultra-thin layer of glass, though we’ve seen that the glass is more for form than function. Because the screen of the Mate Xs wraps around the device, there’s no need for a secondary display. Huawei claims that the Mate Xs has a durable “quad-layer” display along with a redesigned hinge mechanism to further prevent any accidental damage. The display is composed of two layers of polyamide film, followed by the flexible OLED display, a soft polymer for cushion, and finally a layer that connects the display to the body.

The Huawei Mate Xs is also powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 990 chipset, which launched alongside the Huawei Mate 30 last year. It has 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 4,500 mAh battery.

Camera-wise, the Huawei Mate Xs is packing a main 40MP camera, an 8MP telephoto camera, a 16MP wide-angle camera, and a depth-sensing camera. All of these cameras are housed on the “rear,” but when the screen is folded, they can face the user. Speaking of the display again, it’s 8-inches in tablet mode and 6.6-inches when folded.

Huawei Mate Xs design

Huawei is very proud of the Mate Xs design, particularly when it comes to the lack of a notch, the design of the hinge internally, and the lack of a gap when the device is folded over. While there is indeed no notch and no gap, it can be quite annoying to take selfies, and it can also be quite a thick device. When trying to take a selfie, you need to fold the device, open the camera, activate the selfie camera, and then turn around the device to use the other screen. You can then keep using it like this if you want, though the phone will leave a large annoying message at the bottom of the display so that you don’t.

As for how the actual folding part of the Huawei Mate Xs works, it’s rather simple. When the device is folded entirely over, you can press an ejection button on the back (the button with a red stripe) which will release it and flip it halfway out. You then just need to pull it to open the rest.

The four stages of opening the Huawei Mate Xs

From there, you can use the Huawei Mate Xs just like you would any other Android tablet. Watch YouTube, play games, browse the internet, etc. When you want to put it away again, simply fold it back up again into its phone form.

Unlike with the Samsung Galaxy Fold, the Huawei Mate Xs doesn’t really have any compromises when it’s in phone mode. The screen isn’t a tiny placeholder to be used only when you can’t unfold the device – it’s entirely serviceable by itself. Sure it’s plastic and that’s a downside, but if you’re careful with the device things should be okay. However, nobody has had one of these for long enough to pass the test of time quite yet.

Entering the fold

The Huawei Mate Xs is, more or less, the same device as the Huawei Mate X but with one or two key upgrades. It feels basically the same but has a newer chipset, redesigned hinge, and a better hinge mechanism. While I didn’t get enough time with the Mate Xs to test more than just the pre-installed applications, it was a lot of fun to play with to see how apps reacted to the device folding and unfolding. For example, the settings application would change from tablet mode to phone mode when you folded and unfolded the device; simple stuff that you’d expect to be the case, but may not necessarily have been implemented by Huawei. The Huawei Mate Xs is certainly a unique take on the foldable smartphone, but with Huawei pushing a launch without Google Apps on board, it might be a tough sell, especially at its €2,499 price.

The post Huawei Mate Xs First Impressions – A different take on Foldable Smartphones appeared first on xda-developers.

Following an exhibitor exodus at this year’s MWC 2020, the event was eventually canceled. Companies with launch events such as Xiaomi and OPPO were forced to reschedule, though not everyone canceled. Huawei and Honor both held events in Barcelona, though they were primarily virtual launch events with demo areas that those in attendance could try out the newly launched devices. In the case of Honor, we got to play with both the mid-range Honor 9X Pro, and the flagship Honor View 30 Pro.

Honor 9X Pro XDA Forums | Honor View 30 XDA Forums

Honor 9X Pro

The Honor 9X Pro has been around for a while, but it has taken Honor some time to release it in all markets. Back in October, the company announced they would be releasing a different version of the Honor 9X Pro in Europe. It did make its way to a few European countries, but today Honor is announcing an even wider global availability.

The Honor 9X Pro features a 6.59-inch display, the Kirin 810 processor, 6GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and a 4,000mAh battery. The device features three rear cameras: 48MP, 8MP wide-angle, and 2MP depth sensor. The front 16MP camera is housed in a pop-up mechanism, creating very slim bezels on the front of the phone. The back of the device features the iconic near-holographic “X” going from each of the corners.

Despite featuring a pretty “safe” design, the Honor 9X Pro reprises one stand-out feature from its predecessor – the pop-up camera. It’s still pretty slow, but it’s what allows the Honor 9X Pro to provide an all-display experience without much compromise. As we should expect going forward from Huawei and Honor devices, there are no Google services in tow. Instead, Huawei AppGallery and Huawei Mobile Services come pre-installed. The Honor 9X Pro will be available in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Egypt, KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and Malaysia in March for €249 ($270).

Honor View 30 Pro

The Honor View 30 Pro is the international branding of the Honor V30 Pro that launched in China last year. The device features a 6.57-inch FHD+ LCD with dual-hole punch cutouts for the 32MP and 8MP front cameras. Speaking of cameras, on the rear is a triple camera setup consisting of a 40MP primary, 12MP wide-angle, and 8MP telephoto cameras.

It has the latest Kirin 990 chipset with support for dual-mode 5G, 8GB of RAM, up to 256GB of storage, and a 4,100 mAh battery. It’s not quite as elegant in its solution for a bezel-less display though as the Honor 9X Pro, as the camera cut-out does impede upon a bit of screen real-estate. The back features a pretty large camera bump, packed with the aforementioned three camera sensors. There is also a laser autofocus module too, placed underneath the camera flash.

Just like with the Honor 9X Pro as well, Huawei AppGallery and Huawei Mobile Services come pre-installed. Honor did not specify how much the Honor View 30 Pro will cost, where it will launch, or when it will launch.

The post Hands on with the Honor 9X Pro and the Honor View 30 Pro appeared first on xda-developers.

The latest development in the Huawei trade ban saga comes directly from the ongoing G20 summit wherein US President Donald Trump announced that “U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei.” This is a major reprieve to Huawei, which was suffering from the political tensions between the USA and China.

“U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei. We’re talking about equipment where there’s no great national security problem with it. I said that’s O.K., that we will keep selling that product, these are American companies that make these products. That’s very complex, by the way. I’ve agreed to allow them to continue to sell that product so that American companies will continue.”

Donald Trump, President of the USA, and Xi Jinping, President of China, agreed to a cease-fire in the trade battle between the two countries. As negotiations are expected to resume on this political topic, Mr. Trump says he will grant Huawei some relief by allowing US-based companies to resume sales. The US administration is now expected to hold meetings on how to deal with Huawei and its presence on the “entity list,” as the relief does not explicitly remove Huawei from the said list. The announcement made during the summit does not go into any particular details with the scope of relief, so further details are awaited on this end.

Nonetheless, this announcement comes as a major relief for all stakeholders. After the first announcement of the executive order, US-based companies like Google, Qualcomm, and many others had suspended business with Huawei, only to resume it in a limited form after the Chinese company was granted a “temporary general license.” Even UK-based company ARM was affected by the trade restrictions. Because of the uncertainty around Huawei and its smartphones, the company was expecting its international smartphone sales to drop by as much as 40-60%. Devices like the Honor 20 Pro were one of the first victims of the trade ban, as the availability of the phone was no longer certain. Now, with this relief in hand, we expect companies to resume their business operations with Huawei and Honor.

Source: Bloomberg (Paywall), South China Morning Post

This article was updated at 3:25 PM ET to reflect that ARM is based in the UK.

Update 1: Only Widely Available Goods

Per Reuters, Larry Kudlow, the National Economic Council chairman, told Fox News Sunday that President Donald Trump’s decision to allow sales of U.S. technology supplies to Huawei only applies to products that are readily available around the world.

“All that is going to happen is Commerce will grant some additional licenses where there is a general availability…[U.S. microfirm chips in particular] are selling products that are widely available from other countries…This [is] not a general amnestry…The national security concerns remain paramount.” – Larry Kudlow, chairman of the National Economic Council

The details of this agreement are still vague and not final, so we’ll have to wait and see exactly what firms will no longer be restricted from selling products to Huawei. Two Senate Republicans, Marco Rubio and Lindsay Graham, are worried about this latest concession to Huawei, with the former proposing legislation to keep the restrictions in place and the latter warning of “a lot of pushback.” Democrat Chuck Schumer also expressed his disapproval with the trade talks. With bipartisan support for keeping American companies away from doing business with Huawei, it seems that the Chinese giant’s struggles are not over yet.

Update 2: US Government Staff told to treat Huawei as blacklisted only

As per another Reuters report, the US government staff has been told to treat Huawei as blacklisted, effectively nullifying the President’s word.

Mr. John Sonderman, Deputy Director of the Office of Export Enforcement within the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), sent an email to the enforcement staff clarifying how agents should approach license requests by firms seeking approval to sell to Huawei. According to the email, all such applications should be considered on merit and flagged with language noting that “This party is on the Entity List. Evaluate the associated license review policy under part 744”, citing regulations that include the Entity List and the “presumption of denial” licensing policy that is applied to blacklisted companies.

A presumption of denial implies strict review and most licenses reviewed under it are not approved. The email is the only guidance that enforcement officials have received after Trump’s announcement, and it does not improve Huawei’s practical position.

Update 3: US Government holds off on Huawei license decision

The US Government is holding off on deciding on the licenses to be issued to US companies to resume their business with Huawei. The Department of Commerce has received 50 requests from US companies for the special license that they need in order to supply goods to Huawei, but the government is unwilling to decide just yet as China has retaliated with a decision to not purchase US farming goods. The government maintains that the promise to allow reprieve to Huawei was contingent on China beefing up its purchases from American farmers. And as that has not happened, there was no reprieve. The trade war between USA and China does not appear to be de-escalating as the countries are acting and reacting to each other in politically inclined ways that go beyond the scope of our coverage as a technology portal.

In connected news, Huawei also announced its own first-party operating system called Harmony OS. The company still maintains that Harmony OS is not intended to compete against Android, and that Android remains the first choice for Huawei and Honor smartphones and tablets. Harmony OS is intended to be a “Plan B”, which will be used if and only if Plan Android is no longer realizable. The upcoming Huawei Mate 30 series has not received its Google Play Services certification yet because of the trade ban; so unless the trade ban situation is rectified, we might just see Huawei being forced to use the alternative.

Source: Bloomberg

Update 4: Over 130 License Requests

Reuters is reporting that the US Commerce Department received over 130 applications from companies for licenses to sell to Huawei. This is after the department postponed the trade ban for another 90 days. In July, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross disclosed receiving only around 50 applications. No licenses have been granted yet as the Commerce Department is unclear on what to do. “Nobody in the executive branch knows what (Trump) wants and they’re all afraid to make a decision without knowing that,” said William Reinsch, a former Commerce Department official.

Update 5: Licenses Being Given

Back in August when we last updated this article, we mentioned that the US Commerce Department received over 130 applications from companies to sell to Huawei. Now, those license applications total nearly 300. The US is now approving roughly a quarter of those applications, according to The Washington Post. The Commerce Department notified some companies, mainly firms that build telecommunications equipment, that it intends to deny their applications, in which case they have 20 days to appeal. We don’t know exactly which companies were approved, though WaPo cited the Semiconductor Industry Association as saying that semiconductor companies were among the first to be approved. If Google ends up being one of the approved companies, they will be able to certify Android devices with GMS, such as the Huawei Mate 30.

Source: Washington Post

Update 6: Microsoft granted license to export “mass market” software to Huawei

According to a report from Reuters, Microsoft has been granted a license from the US Department of Commerce to export “mass-market” software to Huawei. Microsoft declined to comment beyond its statement on which products had been approved, and the Commerce Department declined to comment as well.

It is unknown at this stage whether Google has been granted a license yet.

Source: Reuters

Update 7: Google applied for a license

According to a new report, Google has applied for a license to resume business with Huawei. If a license is granted, then Google would be allowed to mass export software once again to Huawei. This would presumably allow future Huawei devices to ship with Google Mobile Services once again. Google would not be the only company granted a license, as Microsoft has already been granted one. There is no word on the time table for when this decision will be made.

Source: Heise Online | Via: Android Central

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The Huawei Mate 20 Pro and the Huawei P30 Pro are two very awesome devices that, aside from being flagship devices powered by the Kirin 980 processor and running EMUI, also happen to be phones with lots of features in tow, such as awesome cameras, wireless charging, curved displays, and more. They serve as a testament to Huawei’s abilities in the premium spectrum, and they’re evidently very high-end phones. But one feature that they also happen to carry is an under-display fingerprint sensor: they were actually among the first phones to be launched with such biometric technology, which became mainstream with high-end devices and some mid-range smartphones throughout 2019 and well into 2020.

The fingerprint sensor used in these phones is optical, which means that it needs light in order to pick up your fingerprint properly. As such, the fingerprint sensor’s area lights up whenever it’s going to recognize a fingerprint, often also triggering a fancy animation. You probably haven’t thought about modifying them or customizing them, but as it turns out, it is entirely possible for both phones by following a simple guide in our forums, if this is something that you would be interested in doing. This will only work for Huawei’s always-on display and not for the lock screen animation.

Most of these animations are based on the ones of other phones or they’re entirely custom, and feature a bright circle in the middle which is what your phone uses for picking up your fingerprint. There are some animations, however, that don’t feature this circle, at least from the GIF previews in the forum posts. While I haven’t tried them personally and thus can’t confirm this, it sounds like some of the designs could hamper the fingerprint sensor’s functionality, since it is, after all, an optical sensor. It can easily be reverted if this is the case, though.

Head over to our forums for instructions on how to do this.

Huawei P30 Pro Tutorial / Huawei Mate 20 Pro Tutorial

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Since the middle of 2019, Huawei and its subsidiaries have been on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List, which has prevented them from licensing Google Mobile Services for new devices. For the first few months, Huawei shifted its international smartphone release strategy to focus on releasing essentially rebranded versions of its existing, precertified devices. Behind the scenes, Huawei has also been working on AppGallery, its alternative the Google Play Store, and Huawei Mobile Services, its alternative to Google Play Services. With the recent launch of the Honor View30 Pro and the upcoming launch of the Huawei P40 series, Huawei will need to convince potential customers that they can live without Google apps. One of the most basic applications missing on Huawei’s Google-less devices right now is a dedicated search app, but that might be changing soon as Huawei is now beta testing the Huawei Search app.

Redditor /u/beingnull informed us that Huawei is recruiting users in the UAE to test the new Huawei Search application. The APK file is attached to the forum post, so XDA’s Max Weinbach loaded it on his Mate 30 Pro to give it a spin. Unlike the Google App which not only provides access to the Google search engine but also to Google Assistant, Google Lens, Google Podcasts, and more, Huawei Search is a basic search app that just lets you input a query to search the Internet for webpages, videos, news articles, or images. There is a shortcut to see the current weather, which brings up a widget of the current 24-hour forecast powered by Huafeng-AccuWeather, a joint venture that apparently sources forecast data from the China Meteorological Administration. There are also shortcuts for “sports,” “unit conversion,” and “calculator.” In Settings, the user can see their search history (or toggle it off), give feedback, change their search region and language, toggle safe search, or change the app’s search scope, which controls what Huawei applications the Huawei Search app can also search through. Oh, and the app supports EMUI 10’s dark theme.

According to the User Agreement for Huawei Search, the service is operated by Aspiegel Limited, Huawei’s subsidiary based in Ireland. Huawei shifted much of its mobile software services to Aspiegel in 2019 to ease concerns over the company’s handling of user data. The User Agreement states that users “must have a Huawei ID” to use the service and that the service is “only available in the Huawei Device as an app or embedded search filed in Huawei services, such as Assistant (i.e. Search is not publically available in the web).” Interestingly, we discovered that Huawei Search can be accessed in any web browser by navigating to this URL. Huawei’s app may just be a WebView wrapper for this page.

One of the questions we sought to answer is what search engine powers Huawei Search. We couldn’t match search results from Huawei Search with results from Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Ask, or AOL. In the Privacy Statement, Huawei says the user has the “right to request delisting of a search result” which is in accordance with GDPR. That Huawei is able to delist search results suggests that Huawei Search may not be using a third-party engine, but we aren’t entirely sure if this is the case. For now, the app seems pretty limited in what it can do, and the service itself seems to only be intended for use on Huawei’s smartphones. It would be premature to say that Huawei Search is an alternative to Google search or Microsoft Bing, but there’s a possibility that this service could evolve into a decent competitor down the line.

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It is no secret that Huawei has been having a rough time dealing with the fallout from being placed on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List. While their operations within China remain unaffected by this, their operations outside of China have been massively affected, especially in the smartphone market. The Entity List prevents U.S. companies from doing business with this Chinese company, which in turn prevents Google from licensing its Google Mobile Services and accompanying suite of apps to Huawei for new devices. Google has applied again for an exemption, but while that takes its own sweet time to get sorted, Huawei is in the market looking for options. And it may have settled on IndusOS’s AppBazaar for its app distribution needs in the Indian region, according to a report.

If the name IndusOS sounds vaguely familiar, you may have heard about them in connection with Indic support in app stores like the Samsung Galaxy App Store. Back in early 2019, Samsung had partnered with IndusOS’s AppBazaar to allow Samsung Galaxy users in India to browse apps in their native languages instead of just English. Currently, IndusOS’s AppBazaar app store has more than 400,000 regional apps in 12 local languages, namely Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

According to a report from Economic Times, Huawei is looking to sign a deal with IndusOS to offer a curated Android app store on Huawei and Honor smartphones. The report suggests that the deal is within the context of the Indian market, but both the companies are exploring whether the partnership can be expanded globally. This does not mean that we will directly see AppBazaar being included on EMUI devices in India, but we can expect solutions employed within AppBazaar also be employed in other fashions on these devices.

Huawei faces the steep challenge of convincing average users to use its smartphones without Google apps, which also breaks down the entire chain of connected apps and APIs in other non-Google apps. Huawei does have its own AppGallery alternative for the Play Store, but since the company has approached an alternative app store for its business in India, one can presume that the store is not doing too well. Partnering with IndusOS might just be what Huawei needs to stay in the Indian and global market for longer. Though, it is still difficult to find convincing reasons to purchase a non-Google Huawei smartphone when hundreds of other options exist, even with Indic language support.

Source: Economic Times

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On the first Monday of every month, Google publishes the Android Security Bulletin, a page that discloses all the security vulnerabilities and their patches submitted by Google themselves or other third-parties. Today was no exception: Google just made public the Android Security Bulletin for March 2020. One of the vulnerabilities that are documented in the latest bulletin is CVE-2020-0069, a critical security exploit, specifically a rootkit, that affects millions of devices with chipsets from MediaTek, the large Taiwanese chip design company. Although the March 2020 Android Security Bulletin is seemingly the first time that CVE-2020-0069 has been publicly disclosed, details of the exploit have actually been sitting openly on the Internet—more specifically, on the XDA-Developers forums—since April of 2019. Despite MediaTek making a patch available a month after discovery, the vulnerability is still exploitable on dozens of device models. Even worse, the vulnerability is actively being exploited by hackers. Now MediaTek has turned to Google to close this patch gap and secure millions of devices against this critical security exploit.

The Origin of MediaTek-su

For any readers who aren’t familiar with XDA-Developers, we’re a site that’s home to the largest forums for Android software modifications. Usually, these modifications center around attaining root access on devices in order to delete bloatware, install custom software, or tweak default system parameters. Amazon’s Fire tablets are popular targets for hobbyist hackers on our forums—they’re full of uninstallable bloatware, lack access to basic software applications like the Google Play Store, and, most importantly, are very cheap. The challenge with rooting Amazon Fire tablets is that they’re heavily locked down to prevent users from stepping outside of Amazon’s walled garden; Amazon does not provide an official method to unlock the bootloader of Fire tablets, which is usually the first step in rooting any given Android device. Therefore, the only way to root an Amazon Fire tablet (without hardware modifications) is to find an exploit in the software that allows the user to bypass Android’s security model. In February of 2019, that’s exactly what XDA Senior Member diplomatic did when he published a thread on our Amazon Fire tablet forums. He quickly realized that this exploit was far wider in scope than just Amazon’s Fire tablets.

After a bit of testing from XDA Member diplomatic and other community members, it was confirmed that this exploit works on a large number of MediaTek chips. The author states that the exploit works on “virtually all of MediaTek’s 64-bit chips,” and they specifically name the following as being vulnerable: MT6735, MT6737, MT6738, MT6739, MT6750, MT6753, MT6755, MT6757, MT6758, MT6761, MT6762, MT6763, MT6765, MT6771, MT6779, MT6795, MT6797, MT6799, MT8163, MT8167, MT8173, MT8176, MT8183, MT6580, and MT6595. Because of how many MediaTek chipsets were affected by this exploit, the exploit was given the name “MediaTek-su,” or “MTK-su,” for short. On April 17th, 2019, diplomatic published a second thread titled “Amazing Temp Root for MediaTek ARMv8” on our “Miscellaneous Android Development” forum. In this thread, he shared a script that users can execute to grant them superuser access in shell, as well as set SELinux, the Linux kernel module that provides access control for processes, to the highly insecure “permissive” state. For a user to get root access and set SELinux to permissive on their own device is shockingly easy to do: All you have to do is copy the script to a temporary folder, change directories to where the script is stored, add executable permissions to the script, and then execute the script.

The simple steps to get root access using MediaTek-su. Source: XDA Senior Member Diplomatic

XDA community members confirmed the exploit worked on at least the following devices:

With the exception of MediaTek-based phones from Vivo, Huawei/Honor (after Android 8.0+), OPPO (after Android 8.0+), and Samsung, XDA community members found that MediaTek-su works more often than not when attempted on devices with affected chipsets. According to XDA Member diplomatic, Vivo, Huawei/Honor, OPPO, and Samsung devices “use kernel modifications to deter root access via exploits,” which means the developer would need to dig into the kernel source code of these devices to create “tailored version[s]” of the exploit. That wasn’t worth the added effort, so the developer chose not to add support for these devices even though, “in theory,” the exploit could still work.

By now, it should be clear that this exploit affects a large number of devices on the market. MediaTek chips power hundreds of budget and mid-range smartphone models, cheap tablets, and off-brand set-top boxes, most of which are sold without the expectation of timely updates from the manufacturer. Many devices still affected by MediaTek-su are thus unlikely to get a fix for weeks or months after today’s disclosure, if they get one at all. So what makes MediaTek-su earn its “Critical” severity with a CVSS v3.0 score of 9.3?

Why MTK-su is a Critical Security Vulnerability

To reiterate, the typical way to achieve root access on an Android device is to first unlock the bootloader, which disables verification of the boot partition. Once the bootloader is unlocked, the user can introduce a superuser binary to the system and also a superuser management app to control which processes have access to root. Unlocking the bootloader is intentionally disabling one of the key security features on the device, which is why the user has to explicitly allow it to happen by typically enabling a toggle in Developer Options and then issuing an unlock command to the bootloader. With MediaTek-su, however, the user does not have to unlock the bootloader to get root access. Instead, all they have to do is copy a script to their device and execute it in shell. The user isn’t the only one that can do this, though. Any app on your phone can copy the MediaTek-su script to their private directory and then execute it to gain root access in shell. In fact, XDA Member diplomatic highlights this possibility in their forum thread when they suggest an alternative set of instructions using either the Terminal Emulator for Android app or Termux rather than ADB.

With root access, Android’s security model basically falls apart. For example, permissions become meaningless in the context of root as an app with access to a root shell can grant itself any permission it wants. Furthermore, with a root shell, the entirety of the data partition—including files stored in the typically inaccessible private data directories of applications—is accessible. An app with root can also silently install any other app it wants in the background and then grant them whatever permissions they need to violate your privacy. According to XDA Recognized Developer topjohnwu, a malicious app can even “inject code directly into Zygote by using ptrace,” which means a normal app on your device could be hijacked to do the bidding of the attacker. These examples only touch on a few ways that an app can violate your trust in the background without your knowledge. However, malicious apps can wreak havoc on your device without hiding what they’re doing. Ransomware, for example, is extremely potent with root access; if you don’t pay up, a hypothetical ransomware app could totally and irreversibly make your device inoperable by wiping the entire device clean.

The only “weakness” in MediaTek-su is that it grants an application just “temporary” root access, which means that a process loses superuser access after a device reboot. Furthermore, on devices running Android 6.0 Marshmallow and above, the presence of Verified Boot and dm-verity block modifications to read-only partitions like system and vendor. However, these two factors are mostly only hindrances to modders on our forums rather than malicious actors. To overcome the limitation of temporary root, a malicious app can simply re-run the MediaTek-su script on every boot. On the other hand, there’s little need to overcome dm-verity as permanent modifications to the system or vendor partitions are unlikely to interest most malware authors; after all, there are already tons of things a malicious app can do with a root shell.

If you’re wondering on a technical level what MediaTek-su is exploiting, MediaTek shared the below chart with us that summarizes the entry point. The flaw apparently exists in one of MediaTek’s Linux Kernel drivers called “CMDQ.” The description states that, “by executing IOCTL commands in [the] CMDQ device node,” a local attacker can “arbitrarily read/write physical memory, dump [the] kernel symbol table to the pre-allocated DMA buffer, [and] manipulate the DMA buffer to modify the kernel settings to disable SELinux and escalate to ‘root’ privilege.”

MediaTek’s Security Vulnerability Summary of CVE-2020-0069

According to the chart that MediaTek shared with us, this vulnerability affects MediaTek devices with Linux Kernel versions 3.18, 4.4, 4.9, or 4.14 running Android versions 7 Nougat, 8 Oreo, or 9 Pie. The vulnerability is not exploitable on MediaTek devices running Android 10, apparently, since “the access permission of CMDQ device nodes is also enforced by SELinux.” This mitigation likely comes from an update to MediaTek’s BSP rather than from Android itself. Android 10’s only mitigation for this vulnerability is its restriction on apps executing binaries in their home directory; however, as XDA Recognized Developer topjohnwu notes, a malicious app can simply run the MediaTek-su code in a dynamic library.

Even though MediaTek has patched this issue in all the affected chipsets, they can’t force device makers to implement the patches. MediaTek told us they had patches ready all the way back in May of 2019. Amazon, unsurprisingly, immediately patched the issue across its devices once they were made aware. However, 10 months have passed since MediaTek made a fix available to its partners, yet in March of 2020, dozens of OEMs haven’t fixed their devices. Most of the affected devices are on older Android releases with outdated Android Security Patch Levels (SPLs), and the update situation is even worse when you consider the hundreds of lesser-known device models using these MediaTek chips. MediaTek has a serious issue on its hands here, so they’ve turned to Google for help.

Unlike MediaTek, Google can force OEMs to update their devices through license agreements or program terms (such as Android One). For an OEM to declare that a device is in compliance with the 2020-03-05 Security Patch Level (SPL), the device must include all framework, Linux kernel, and applicable vendor driver fixes in the March 2020 Android Security Bulletin, which includes a fix for CVE-2020-0069, or MediaTek-su. (Google doesn’t actually seem to enforce that OEMs actually merge all patches when declaring a certain SPL, though.) Now that the March 2020 bulletin is out, this story should be over, right? Unfortunately, we have to also hold Google’s feet to the fire for dragging their feet on incorporating the patches.

The flaw in the security patch process

In case it isn’t clear already, not every security vulnerability needs to end up in an Android Security Bulletin. Many vulnerabilities are discovered and patched by vendors without them ever showing up in the monthly bulletin. MediaTek-su should have been one of them, but for multiple reasons, several OEMs failed to integrate the patches offered by MediaTek. (There are a lot of potential reasons why, ranging from a lack of resources to business decisions to a failure in communication.) When I previously stated that MediaTek “turned to Google” for help, it implied that MediaTek actively sought help from Google to get OEMs to finally fix their devices. However, that might not actually have been the case. It is my understanding that Google was unaware of MediaTek-su until it was incidentally brought up in a security report from TrendMicro published January 6th, 2020. In the report, TrendMicro was documenting another security vulnerability, dubbed the “use-after-free in binder driver” vulnerability, that was actively being exploited in the wild. TrendMicro noted how three malicious apps attained root access using one of two methods, either the “use-after-free in binder driver” vulnerability or MediaTek-su.

Alleged Play Store apps abusing MediaTek-su. Source: TrendMicro.

In the code that TrendMicro shared, we can clearly see how the malicious apps were targeting specific device models (eg. Nokia 3, OPPO F9, and Redmi 6A) and employing MediaTek-su on them.

I can’t speak for TrendMicro, but it seems that they were unaware that MediaTek-su was a yet-unpatched exploit. Their focus was on the “use-after-free in binder driver” exploit, after all, and the discovery of the use of MediaTek-su seems to have been an afterthought. (I’m sure that if TrendMicro were aware of the situation surrounding MediaTek-su, they would have coordinated their disclosure efforts with Google.) We were only made aware of this exploit ourselves on February 5th, 2020, and after investigating for ourselves how bad it was, we contacted Google about it on February 7th, 2020. Google was so concerned about the repercussions of publicizing MediaTek-su that they asked us to hold off on publishing this story until today. After considering the irreparable harm that can be inflicted on users targeted by malware using MediaTek-su, we agreed to put a hold on this story until the announcement of the March 2020 Android Security Bulletin. Still, considering how long it’ll take many devices to get the latest security update, if they ever get it at all, there is bound to be a ton of devices still vulnerable to MediaTek-su a few months from now. That should be horrifying to anyone with a vulnerable device.

Even though this very serious, “critical” severity vulnerability is actively being exploited in the wild, Google only slotted in the fix for this issue into the March 2020 bulletin, which is about 2 months after they were made aware of the issue. While Google does inform its Android partners about the latest Android Security Bulletin a full 30 days before the bulletin is made public (ie. OEMs were made aware of what’s in the March 2020 bulletin in early February 2020), Google can, and often does, update the bulletin with changes or new fixes. Why Google didn’t choose to expedite the inclusion of a patch for such a serious issue is beyond me, especially when MediaTek had a fix for it 10 months ago. If such a bug were discovered in Apple’s devices, I have little doubt they would have issued a fix much, much faster. Google essentially banked on the risky bet that MediaTek-su would remain as seemingly low-profile as it already was until the March 2020 bulletin. While Google seems to have gotten lucky in that regard, we have no idea how many malware authors already know about the exploit. After all, it’s been sitting in a random XDA forum thread for nearly a whole year.

There’s one more party in this debacle that I haven’t addressed much, and it’s the author of the exploit, XDA Member diplomatic. To his credit, I don’t think he had any malicious intent in publishing MediaTek-su. We can clearly trace the exploit’s origin to diplomatic’s desire to mod the Amazon Fire tablets. Diplomatic tells me that his primary goal in developing this root method was to help the community. Customizing your device is what XDA is all about, and diplomatic’s efforts in the community are what people enjoy about the forums. Although diplomatic’s refusal to open source the project raises some concerns, he explains that he wanted the community to enjoy this having root access for as long as possible. When I first contacted diplomatic, he also stated that he was in a collaboration with some partners that prevented him from sharing the project’s source code and research. While I was unable to get more details about this collaboration, I do wonder if diplomatic would have chosen to go public with this exploit if MediaTek offered a bug bounty program. I can’t imagine that a vulnerability of this magnitude wouldn’t pay out a hefty sum of money if MediaTek actually had such a program. Diplomatic claims that this exploit has been possible since the late 2015 MediaTek MT6580 chipset, so one has to wonder if diplomatic is even the first person to find this exploit. He tells me that he had no idea that MediaTek-su was actively being exploited until the publication of this article.

How to check if you’re affected by MediaTek-su?

If you want to check whether your device is vulnerable to MediaTek-su, then manually run the script posted by XDA Member diplomatic in this XDA forum thread. If you enter a root shell (you’ll know when the symbol changes from $ to #), then you’ll know the exploit works. If it works, then you’ll need to wait for the manufacturer of your device to roll out an update that patches MediaTek-su. If your device reports the Security Patch Level of 2020-03-05, which is the latest March 2020 SPL, then it is almost certainly protected against MediaTek-su. Otherwise, you’ll have to just check whether your device is vulnerable.

Update 1 (3/2/2020 @ 9:45 PM EST): This article was updated to clarify that XDA Member diplomatic was actually aware of the scope of this vulnerability as soon as he discovered it back in February of 2019, but that he was unaware of the exploit’s in-the-wild use until the publication of this article. We also corrected our wording regarding one reason why diplomatic declined to share the project’s source code.

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Huawei’s ongoing trade restrictions with the US has forced the company to put more emphasis on developing its own products. Even though several companies, including Google and Microsoft, have submitted applications to the US government for a license to do business with Huawei once again, the company has already managed to set up an ecosystem of alternative products to replace all of Google’s products that it currently doesn’t have access to. These include HMS Core, which is an alternative to Google Mobile services, Harmony OS, which is a first-party alternative to Google’s Android, and AppGallery, which replaces the Google Play Store. Earlier this week, we also learned that Huawei is currently exploring IndusOS’s AppBazaar app store in India as a Google Play Store alternative. In a bid to get more developers to submit their apps on the new Huawei AppGallery, the company has now announced a new Preferential Policy that aims to give developers a bigger cut of the revenue.

As per the new Preferential Policy, Huawei will be offering developers a higher revenue share for the first twelve months after their app goes live, with a slightly lower cut thereafter. Here’s what the new revenue share looks like in comparison to the standard revenue share percentage:

In comparison, the Google Play Store gives developers 70% of all revenue, while the Epic Games Store gives developers 88% of all revenue. However, Epic Games Store doesn’t seem to be open for regular developers to submit apps and Google doesn’t have any comparable preferential policy. Therefore, Huawei’s Preferential Policy could, in effect, pull developers away from the Google Play Store and completely eliminate the need to provide the Play Store on Huawei devices.

As a report from GizmoChina points out, Huawei’s Preferential Policy is only valid for the first 24 months starting from the point when developers accept the agreement before June 30, 2020. The policy will take effect on the first day of the next month after a developer agrees to it, provided they had previously signed the AppGallery Joint Operations Service Agreement. For those who haven’t signed the agreement, the policy begins the same month. Both categories of developers will have until June 2020 to benefit from the preferential policy.

Source: Huawei Developers

Via: GizmoChina

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Back in December last year, we first learned that Huawei will be launching its flagship P40 series in March 2020. At the time, the company’s CEO, Richard Yu, also confirmed that the Huawei P40 series will be the first to ship with its new HMS ecosystem. For the unaware, Huawei’s HMS Ecosystem is an alternative to Google Mobile Services which consists of both user-facing apps and background apps. The company first showcased the HMS Ecosystem back in November last year, but since then it hasn’t made an appearance on any device from the company. But that may change soon, as the company has now revealed that it will be launching the Huawei P40 series later this month.

In a recent tweet from its official Twitter handle, the company has confirmed that the Huawei P40 series will be launched during an upcoming online-only event on March 26th. Previously, the company had planned to launch its next-gen flagships at an event in Paris, but the event has been canceled over concerns of the spread of COVID-19. To prepare for the launch event, Huawei recently gave a few media outlets some exclusive hands-on with the upcoming device. Digital Trends got their hands on a prototype version of the Huawei P40, showcasing its design, camera setup, and a few key specifications. While Android Authority, on the other hand, spent some time with the final launch unit, albeit the device was enclosed in a box.

While we know a few key details about the upcoming devices in the Huawei P40 series, thanks to several leaks and rumors, the company hasn’t revealed any concrete details about the upcoming devices. Nonetheless, we expect to see big improvements in camera technology in the P40 series. However, Huawei’s continued placement on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List means that the company is still unable to sign a new license agreement with Google to distribute Google Mobile Services on any new products. As mentioned earlier, this means that the Huawei P40 series won’t support Google apps and, instead, will feature Huawei’s own HMS and HMSCore.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that according to a report from The Information, the company is projecting a 20% decline in smartphone sales this year due to the trade ban. The effects of the trade ban weren’t as apparent last year and that can be attributed to two main reasons — a surge in sales in Huawei’s home market of China post-U.S ban that helped ease declining sales globally and the fact that last year the company managed to launch some new devices with GMS onboard by rebranding a few devices that they’d already launched before the ban. Despite the lack of GMS, however, we expect Huawei to pack in some innovative features in its upcoming flagships and we can’t wait to try out its HMS ecosystem in action.

Source: The Information

Via: ArsTechnica

Featured image: Leaked Huawei P40 Pro “Premium Edition” render

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In October last year, Honor opened Magic UI‌ 3.0 beta for the Honor View 20 and Honor 20. A month later, the company began rolling out stable Android 10 updates to both devices in multiple regions before the rollout was paused for undisclosed reasons. Now it appears the company has resolved whatever issue it had been facing and is resuming the Magic UI 3.0 rollout globally for four Honor devices.

Honor View 20 Forums ||| Honor 20 Forums

Through a press release, Honor has announced it will be rolling out Magic UI‌ 3.0 (EMUI 10) with Android 10 to the Honor 20, Honor 20 Pro, Honor View 20 and Honor 9X starting 15th March 2020, globally. The update will bring all the highlight features of EMUI‌ 10 and Android 10 to the devices, including the system-wide dark mode, new navigation gestures, smoother animations, GPU‌ Turbo for improved gaming performance, security and privacy enhancements and much more. The Magic UI‌ 3.0 also updates the camera UI with a more modernized look and accessible video recording features such as the assistive grid, horizontal level, and timer.

For those wondering whether this update will have any impact on Google Mobile Services (GMS), it should be noted that these phones are already Google certified and users will continue to have access to all Google apps as well as GMS-dependent apps after installing the update.

Apart from the above-mentioned devices, Honor told us they are also planning to bring the Magic UI 3.0 update to the Honor 10 Lite, Honor 20 Lite, Honor 8X, Honor 9X Pro, Honor V10 and Honor 10. The company says the update is currently under testing — however, it did not reveal any details regarding the exact rollout date for these devices.

Honor 20 Pro Forums ||| Honor 9X Forums

If you own the Honor 20, Honor 20 Pro, Honor View 20 or Honor 9X, keep an eye out for the Magic UI 3.0 OTA notification in the coming weeks.

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Smartphone cameras have witnessed several advancements over the years. Innovations like triple, quadruple, or even quintuple/penta camera arrangements, optical zoom in smartphone cameras, resolution up to 108MP, and most importantly affordable high-resolution 48MP and 64MP camera sensors have allowed many users to renounce or limit their usage of digital point-to-shoot or SLR cameras. For those who prefer taking and editing high-quality and color-accurate images on their phones, several OEMs now allow users to capture RAW quality images from the native Camera apps. Extending support for these users, Adobe has added lens correction profiles in Photoshop, Lightroom, and the Camera Raw plug-in for several Android smartphones including the OnePlus 7T, Huawei Mate 30/30 Pro, LG G8/V50S, etc.

OnePlus 7T XDA Forums || Huawei Mate 30 Pro XDA Forums || LG G8 ThinQ XDA Forums 

When capture images using a smartphone camera, capturing in common formats such as JPEG automatically corrects geometric distortions or exposure issues in the images. However, when images are captured in RAW (and saved with a .dng extension), these lens aberrations are not cured automatically, and this is when the dedicated lens profiles are needed. Adobe added lens correction profiles for several recently released devices on February 10th, 2020. These profiles are supported in Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, and the Camera Raw filter.

The list of newly added devices include:

• Huawei Mate 30 Front Camera (JPEG only)
• Huawei Mate 30 Rear Main Camera (DNG + JPEG)
• Huawei Mate 30 Rear Telephoto Camera (DNG + JPEG)
• Huawei Mate 30 Rear Wide Camera (DNG + JPEG)
• Huawei Mate 30 Pro Front Camera (JPEG only)
• Huawei Mate 30 Pro Rear Main Camera (DNG + JPEG)
• Huawei Mate 30 Pro Rear Telephoto Camera (DNG + JPEG)
• Huawei Mate 30 Pro Rear Wide Camera (DNG + JPEG)
• LG G8 ThinQ Front Camera (DNG+JPEG)
• LG G8 ThinQ Rear Main Camera (DNG+JPEG)
• LG G8 ThinQ Rear Wide Camera (DNG+JPEG)
• LG V50S ThinQ Front Camera (DNG+JPEG)
• LG V50S ThinQ Rear Main Camera (DNG+JPEG)
• LG V50S ThinQ Rear Wide Camera (DNG+JPEG)
• OnePlus 7T Front Camera (DNG + JPEG)
• OnePlus 7T Rear Main Camera (DNG + JPEG)
• OnePlus 7T Rear Telephoto Camera (JPEG)
• OnePlus 7T Rear Wide Camera (JPEG)

Apart from dedicated lens correction profiles in Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, and the Camera Raw feature, these profiles are also supported in Adobe’s Photoshop Express and Lightroom apps on Android.

Adobe Photoshop Express:Photo Editor Collage Maker (Free, Google Play) →

Adobe Lightroom - Photo Editor & Pro Camera (Free⁺, Google Play) →

Source: Adobe

Via: Reddit

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Following the launch of the View 30 Pro and 9X Pro internationally, Huawei’s sub-brand Honor is now prepping up to launch the Honor 30 series. The company is scheduled to launch the series in China later this month and we now have some key information about one of the devices — the Honor 30S. According to a recent report from GSMArena, the upcoming Honor 30S may be the first smartphone from the company to feature Huawei’s new Kirin 820 5G-enabled chipset.

The report cites a 3C certification listing as the source of the information which states that the device will be 5G capable. This leads us to believe that it will feature Huawei’s new mid-range Kirin 820 5G chip. The listing also reveals that the Honor 30S will come with support for 40W fast charging, with a max 10V/4A charging configuration. Furthermore, a leaked render of the device highlights that it will feature a quad-camera setup with a camera module that looks quite a lot like the one found on the previously launched Honor View 30. But since the Honor View 30 phones sported a triple camera setup, Honor has added a fourth camera sensor in the second column beneath the dual-LED flash. If you look closely, you can also spot a recess on the right edge of the device which suggests that it will feature a side-mounted fingerprint scanner.

As of now, Honor has released no official information about the upcoming devices in the Honor 30 series. However, if we take last year’s Honor 20S into consideration, we expect the Honor 30S to feature mid-range specifications and a ~$300 price tag. It’s also worth noting that the Honor 20S was an affordable version of the company’s flagship Honor 20, which means that Honor may also launch a Kirin 990 powered flagship as part of the Honor 30 series.

Via: GSMArena

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