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Comment by gcatalfamo | Hacker News Reader

Warning: Personal opinion, so treat it as such.

Regardless of this being mandated or not, they are sacking the best Android flagship representative thus leaving the market open to others.

Huawei is huge outside US and their latest phones are a better purchase than Samsung, more performant but most importantly they age slower which is a critical thing for an Android device.

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This has been mandated by a US government decree. The US president has declared a "National Emergency" which gives him this kind of power. They have placed Huawei and 70 linked partners on a trade blacklist saying Huawei is a danger to national security.

So it is now effectively an offense for US companies to trade with Huawei directly or indirectly.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3010403/us-commerce-...

I hope it leads to competition, but i doubt that will happen any time soon.

The ironic part here is that by blocking Huawei phones from security updates from Google, could/will create security issues with anybody who has a Huawei phone.

Which in some way makes this a self-fulfilling action.

> The US president has declared a "National Emergency" which gives him this kind of power.

When everything is a 'national emergency', nothing is.

> I hope it leads to competition, but i doubt that will happen any time soon.

Are you living under a rock? There is already a LOT of competition in the US smartphone market (both domestic and foreign brands) and now, with this new 'national emergency,' there is less competition in the US. Mission accomplished?

The choice is between a very expensive and heavily walled garden Apple iOS or Android where your experience can vary.

While Apples growth rate has fallen, i'm am sure there is a reason why it can charge over 2 x high-end premiums. Hint: It has nothing to do with the hardware.

Meanwhile, banning a handful of Chinese phone manufacturers does absolutely nothing to address your "only 2 phone OSes" concerns. In fact, it further validates my previous comment, because now there are fewer OEMs operating in the US who could introduce an alternative to Android or Google.

You have to go beyond this kind of limited view. A new OS which has momentum anywhere is an opportunity to weaken the chains of monopoly everywhere.

As i said i originally: I hope it leads to competition, but i doubt that will happen any time soon.

There is an absolute requirement for Huawei to build new technology and actually any other successful firm which has dependencies on US imports.

I'm not sure I understand the argument you are trying to make here. I agree that having new OS opportunities is a great thing, but removing competition from the US market means there's less incentive for companies still in the US market to create alternative operating systems. Are we basically saying the same thing?

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