The Huawei ban has been a nightmare for the company, with organizations ranging from Google to the Bluetooth SIG having been pressured into severing ties with it, but it's not all bad news — Facebook bloatware apps can no longer be pre-installed on Huawei devices, according to Reuters.

Owners of new Huawei smartphones will no longer have the privilege of losing an odd-gigabyte of storage space to apps like Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Unlike the potential Play Store ban, which only applies to future products, this ban will apply to all devices lying unshipped with Huawei — an annoyance for the company, who'll have to unseal existing stock and remove the offending apps.

Luckily for Huawei, the more serious consequences of the 'National Emergency', like not being able to receive security updates from Google, are on hold for 90 days till 21st August 2019. In the meantime, Google is lobbying for an extension to this reprieve, and the possibility of a permanent exception to the ban for the security of Huawei smartphone users.

To be clear, this doesn't restrict anyone from hopping onto the Play Store and downloading Facebook's apps, so there's literally no downside of it to Huawei's customers — it just seems to be Facebook's way of signaling to the US government that it's on the "Huawei is bad" bandwagon too.

I wonder if we can get Samsung to anger Facebook and receive a similar 'punishment' too.

Source: Reuters