One of the main advantages of Android is the ability to customize the interface, since it is possible to add icon packages, change the font or use different launchers.
However, it seems that the latest Chinese versions of Huawei’s EMUI 9 layer blocks the establishment of third-party launchers as default. This means that Honor and Huawei devices purchased in China that run EMUI 9 can not easily change their launcher by Nova Launcher, Rootless Pixel Launcher or others.
For the moment, this only seems to affect the Chinese versions of devices with EMUI 9 (such as the Huawei Mate 20 series, Honor Magic 2 or any other device that runs an EMUI 9 beta) and not the global software.
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According to some sources, the reason for this restriction is to combat some Chinese retailers that pre-install fake EMUI launchers loaded with advertising and malware.
The reaction of the users has led the company to announce an update that will allow changing the default launcher, but for now it has not arrived. We also do not know what Huawei’s final decision will be about it and whether it will also be extended to devices with global ROMs.
It is worth to mention that Huawei has officially announced that following the first launch of the EMUI 9.0 beta based on Android Pie to 7 phones, there are a second batch including 13 models to open the beta recruitment.
Getting restrictive. That’s why I switched to a Xiaomi. Then they are doing it too.