Huawei phones now showing ads on lock screens

Jun 14, 2019 06:23 GMT  ·  By

UPDATE: Huawei has removed the ads, but claims it's not the one to blame for this incident. Original story below.

As if Huawei doesn’t already have enough problems in the United States and elsewhere, the company has started showing ads on the lock screen of several phones, including the P30 Pro flagship.

As per several reddit discussions, the ads seem to be powered by Magazine Unlock, a feature available on Huawei phones that automatically replaces the lock screen wallpaper after each unlock.

But instead of setting a new lock screen background, Magazine Unlock sometime displays an ad for hotel reservation website booking.com.

Neither Huawei nor Booking offered any comments on this ad push, albeit the official account of Huawei Germany released an apology and recommended users who want to block the ads to disable Magazine Unlock.

“I'm sorry that you think we want to advertise. You can deactivate the magazine at any time. Just wipe it from bottom to top and click on the gearwheel symbol,” the @HuaweiMobileDe account tweeted.

Ads showing up regardless of phone model

This workaround indeed seems to be working, although it goes without saying that it’s not necessarily the most convenient solution, especially because it disables an otherwise useful feature entirely.

The ads show up on various Huawei phone models regardless of region.

This new blunder comes at the worst possible time for Huawei. The Chinese tech giant is struggling to deal with a ban issued by the United States government in May and blocking the company from doing any business with American partners.

Due to the blacklist, Huawei can no longer use Android and Windows on its devices, therefore the future of some of its models is currently in doubt because an OS to power them isn’t yet ready. Huawei is working on an in-house developed operating system to replace Android, with the first models running it projected to go live in China later this year.