The UK Mobile Phone Blog

Google support for Chinese Android phones is removed

January 22, 2010 at 12:41 pm by Hannah | In Coming Soon Handsets, Mobile News, Mobile Phones, New Mobile Phones

Support for two new Chinese Android Mobile phones from Google has been withdrawn as their relationship with China continues to fade away. According to a Times Online report, a Google spokeswoman said they had ‘postponed’ the launch of two new Android phones which were scheduled to be revealed today by China Unicom- Chinas second largest operator. The Android handsets were created in partnership with Samsung and Motorola, and it has been said that the two vendors had been informed by Google to remove any Google-related elements from the devices.

Handsets running on the Android OS typically include Google services such as Gmail, Google search and Google maps. Android users can also benefit from endless downloadable apps from the Android Market, with one of the current handsets sporting Android including the HTC Hero.

A statement in Chinese magazine Caijing said that China Unicom had distributed internal messages regarding how Google had removed authorisation to allow their content on the devices, including the presence of logos.

Google however are not dismissing Android altogether. Motorola have already produced 20,000 units for China Unicom and Samsung had turned out 10,000 units.

No details were given about how long the launch would be postponed, only saying that it would be ‘irresponsible’ of them to launch the product at this time. The company threatened to shut down the local version of their service (www.google.cn) if the Chinese Government continued with it’s policy of censoring the service. Google also say that the Chinese Government are responsible for numerous security attacks, including attempted break ins to the firms email service Gmail.

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