For those of you like me who managed to escape bigger distractions last week, you may have noticed that the Chinese consumer electronics giant Huawei has released its flagship smartphone P40 Pro.
Of course, you will not see this device marketed in the United States. Most US businesses have been unable to do substantial business with Huawei, which includes selling and exporting components and software since they were added to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s list of entities, and administration Trump has campaigned to turn Huawei and other companies that have dealings with the Chinese government into outcasts.
These American restrictions have not prevented Huawei from marketing its products in other regions – such as Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America – under the Huawei and Honor brands. I was fortunate to have access to the UK and EMEA version of the P40 Pro for about a week, and I use it a lot as my main Android device.
I will not go into details of the hardware and its overall performance. Many other publications and much more detail-oriented mobile tech writers have already done extensive work in examining this product from the perspective of nuts and bolts. But my overall opinion on the device is that it is nothing less than a technological marvel and a magnificent showcase of the company’s ability to produce advanced value-added mobile equipment.
The reaction to the device among the technology press has been almost universal. In essence, everyone agrees that the hardware is fantastic, and it is easily compared to what Samsung recently released with the S20 series in terms of raw technical performance and component nomenclature on the device. He just has one serious flaw: he doesn’t have Google mobile services or the Google Play Store.
I have spoken to a few other writers who have been part of the review chain for this product. Everyone has said that not having access to the Play Store and Google apps (such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Youtube, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Voice, Google Hangouts, Android Auto) is a break.
Several, including myself, have even tried various unofficial workarounds to work around the restriction and install Google mobile services via side loading, as they can’t break the habit. Unfortunately, the security block against this on the Huawei P40 series is total; it fails to activate the services because it is an unlicensed and unlicensed device. It is certainly possible that some enterprising developers may find a new workaround, but so far this does not seem to be something that can be easily overcome due to the security of Google.
There is still hope that, in the spirit of international cooperation, especially in these extremely difficult and unprecedented times, the current presidential administration can turn the tide on this issue, and in theory, Google will again be authorized to license its software to Huawei. But, realistically, that probably won’t happen until there is a new administration.
Regardless of the (unlikely) possibility that this will improve soon, Huawei has repeatedly announced its commitment to develop its own mobile service stack and app store, which is included on the P40 and Mate 30 and inexpensively, but- always excellent Honor phones.
Rather than raising my hands in the air and declaring that the device is a rupture factor, I decided to use the product as it is and see if it was really a disadvantage not to have software Google. At first it was a little frustrating, but after a few days of use, I didn’t miss Google or its applications.
Install missing apps
The first thing I did on the device was to load some of the independent app stores, including Amazon AppStore for Android and APKPure. I then looked at all the apps I used on my iPhone and my other Android devices to see if they were available in these stores. It turned out that each of the third-party apps I use was actually available from both sources, even though they weren’t on Huawei’s app gallery.
The list includes not only commonly used social networking and messaging apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Slack, but also essential content consuming apps like Spotify, Netflix, CBS, HBO, Hulu, Amazon Video and Sonos as well as transportation and delivery services like Uber and UberEats and Yelp. I also had no problem installing some of the more obscure IoT apps like Lutron and iAqualink, which I use for home automation. And, yes, there were a lot of games to choose from, even the ones I had already installed on other devices via Google Play and the Apple App Store.
The issue of potential malware and device security when installing from third-party sources has not been overlooked. Still, Google’s Play Store record has not been exactly stellar when it comes to verifying its developers ’apps for security risks. While I’m not going to say that installing apps from a source other than Google Play is just as safe, the goal of this experiment was to see if I could replace what I needed from from third-party sources and whether the device would be usable as such. In the long run, I would definitely prefer that all of these apps be installable directly from Huawei, Amazon or another trusted source such as Microsoft.
Google is sticky, but not irreplaceable
The apps and services I use from Google are more problematic to replace. I use Gmail as my personal and professional email solution and I use G Suite for my workflow. Not being able to edit documents on my smartphone is a downside, but it is by no means a breach of contract since I don’t use my phone for that – it’s something I would do instead on my Mac or iPad.
Aside from the fact that Huawei has to fill its app gallery with third-party apps and convince developers to submit them, there is the problem of Google’s API stickiness in Android itself that developers are used to use for different types of functionality. For example, cartography. Many Android apps, such as Yelp and Twitter, access the Google Maps API when geographic tags are used. On Twitter, tweets that refer to a location display a gray area where a map on Google would appear. But there are many other Google APIs that developers connect to, which Huawei will need to replace with its own or through a partnership to fill these functionality gaps, especially when it comes to monetization.
Also: Go to Google: we choose privacy-friendly alternatives to each Google service
These days, I don’t drive anywhere other than Costco and my local supermarket, or I take takeaways near my home, for obvious reasons. But, when life finally returns to normal, if I continue to use the P40 Pro as my daily Android driver, I will have to replace Google Maps with a different navigation and mapping solution. There are a lot of good ones that don’t depend on Google’s mobile services, such as Waze, Sygic, Tomtom and the very excellent HERE WeGo, which is a company that came from the sale of Microsoft-Nokia assets. Naturally, some of them are paid applications, while others are “freemium”, which means that not all the features are free; they require in-app purchases to fully activate them.
The only problem with using one of these third-party navigation solutions with a current generation Huawei device is that it will not work with Android Auto, which only exists on devices under licensed Google services. I use Android Auto (and Apple CarPlay) in my GM 2016 vehicle to display Google Maps navigation on the main central screen of the car. In order for Huawei to project apps to an automotive screen, the company will need to find another solution, assuming it will be able to work with the auto companies to facilitate connectivity on their respective batteries.
Gmail and Google Calendar are undoubtedly accessible through the well-designed and free Microsoft Outlook client for Android. However, because Google has specific APIs, its native customers will be more optimized for them, especially when it comes to labels and other native functions. But can I read and send emails with my Gmail account? Can I search for things in my inbox? Can I schedule things on my calendar? Yes, but not with Google’s proprietary UX.
The rest of the Microsoft product suite for Android is also excellent and fairly comprehensive, given that the company is currently developing its own Android devices, namely the Surface Duo, which, to date, is still slated for release in late 2020. Other Microsoft apps I like to use (which are easily installable on the P40 Pro via Amazon Appstore and APKPure) include the Microsoft launcher, Cortana, Office Lens, OneDrive and Microsoft Edge, which directly replaces Google Chrome and has become my browser of choice in recent weeks especially for its integrated NewsGuard integration and free.
Another application that I use a lot is Google Voice, which I use for Unified Messaging and Virtual PBX on all my devices using a single phone number that I give, which rings all my devices and stores centralized voicemail . RingCentral, which recently rolled out a new version of its service for unified VoIP, video conferencing and virtual private branch exchange, is one of the few third-party services with equivalent functionality. Potentially, this is a feature that Huawei could offer preloaded via a partnership or on its application gallery.
The only app I really miss from Google is Photos – which is a configuration and forget service that works well for backing up photos to my Google One cloud account. I also use Google Photos on my Android and iOS devices as a unified package to edit photo content, and the built-in tools for quick photo editing are good enough for my use.
Indeed, I can use Microsoft OneDrive for the automated cloud backup, and it works very well. However, the application is not as neat and the integrated photo editing is not there. I had to download a few different editing packages to provide me with similar functionality. Do I expect this to be something that Microsoft will eventually resolve and devote more resources to developers, given that it will launch its own devices soon? Yes.
Getting the product into the hands of American consumers will be a challenge
All of these things are minor inconveniences, and that’s the critical problem here – but for some users, even a small inconvenience looks like an insurmountable obstacle. Since there are functional third-party solutions for maps / navigation, cloud photo storage, VoIP / videoconferencing and Unified Messaging, as well as all types of content consumption, this means that many perceived gaps can be filled through partnerships. Huawei doesn’t need to have the full experience like Google does to be successful. Indeed, Apple does not have all these similar services and its end users also have the choice between third-party solutions.
The main problem – and the most difficult to overcome – is getting Huawei’s products into the hands of consumers with operators reluctant to sell the devices, which would have served as an integrated distribution channel. Its direct Chinese national competitor, Oppo, has mostly managed to overcome this problem with the OnePlus brand, as has ZTE, which was also once on the list of entities, but it now also sells its products directly. Could Huawei sign an agreement with Amazon or Microsoft to resell the devices without violating the entity list restrictions? Potentially, yes, because the inclusion of Huawei’s list of entities does not restrict payments between the parties. Would some of them be ready to enter into such a partnership on such a basis? This is uncertain.
I certainly hope that Huawei will eventually see its products released in the U.S. because I think the technology is great and there is huge potential for value for consumers given the talents and vertical integration capabilities of the business that few others can achieve. It is unclear whether this will happen in the next few years or within the confines of the current administration.
But I have certainly learned from the experience of using the P40 Pro without Google applications that it is not an extreme difficulty to do so, and the perceived shortcomings can certainly be overcome with hard work by the Chinese giant of technology and developers eager to spend more effort to run their applications seamlessly on a new stack of mobile services.
Could you live without Google Mobile Services on your mobile device? Respond and let me know.
For those of you like me who managed to escape bigger distractions last week, you may have noticed that the Chinese consumer electronics giant Huawei has released its flagship smartphone P40 Pro.
Of course, you will not see this device marketed in the United States. Most US businesses have been unable to do substantial business with Huawei, which includes selling and exporting components and software since they were added to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s list of entities, and administration Trump has campaigned to turn Huawei and other companies that have dealings with the Chinese government into outcasts.
These American restrictions have not prevented Huawei from marketing its products in other regions – such as Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America – under the Huawei and Honor brands. I was fortunate to have access to the UK and EMEA version of the P40 Pro for about a week, and I use it a lot as my main Android device.
I will not go into details of the hardware and its overall performance. Many other publications and much more detail-oriented mobile tech writers have already done extensive work in examining this product from the perspective of nuts and bolts. But my overall opinion on the device is that it is nothing less than a technological marvel and a magnificent showcase of the company’s ability to produce advanced value-added mobile equipment.
The reaction to the device among the technology press has been almost universal. In essence, everyone agrees that the hardware is fantastic, and it is easily compared to what Samsung recently released with the S20 series in terms of raw technical performance and component nomenclature on the device. He just has one serious flaw: he doesn’t have Google mobile services or the Google Play Store.
I have spoken to a few other writers who have been part of the review chain for this product. Everyone has said that not having access to the Play Store and Google apps (such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Youtube, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Voice, Google Hangouts, Android Auto) is a break.
Several, including myself, have even tried various unofficial workarounds to work around the restriction and install Google mobile services via side loading, as they can’t break the habit. Unfortunately, the security block against this on the Huawei P40 series is total; it fails to activate the services because it is an unlicensed and unlicensed device. It is certainly possible that some enterprising developers may find a new workaround, but so far this does not seem to be something that can be easily overcome due to the security of Google.
There is still hope that, in the spirit of international cooperation, especially in these extremely difficult and unprecedented times, the current presidential administration can turn the tide on this issue, and in theory, Google will again be authorized to license its software to Huawei. But, realistically, that probably won’t happen until there is a new administration.
Regardless of the (unlikely) possibility that this will improve soon, Huawei has repeatedly announced its commitment to develop its own mobile service stack and app store, which is included on the P40 and Mate 30 and inexpensively, but- always excellent Honor phones.
Rather than raising my hands in the air and declaring that the device is a rupture factor, I decided to use the product as it is and see if it was really a disadvantage not to have software Google. At first it was a little frustrating, but after a few days of use, I didn’t miss Google or its applications.
Install missing apps
The first thing I did on the device was to load some of the independent app stores, including Amazon AppStore for Android and APKPure. I then looked at all the apps I used on my iPhone and my other Android devices to see if they were available in these stores. It turned out that each of the third-party apps I use was actually available from both sources, even though they weren’t on Huawei’s app gallery.
The list includes not only commonly used social networking and messaging apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Slack, but also essential content consuming apps like Spotify, Netflix, CBS, HBO, Hulu, Amazon Video and Sonos as well as transportation and delivery services like Uber and UberEats and Yelp. I also had no problem installing some of the more obscure IoT apps like Lutron and iAqualink, which I use for home automation. And, yes, there were a lot of games to choose from, even the ones I had already installed on other devices via Google Play and the Apple App Store.
The issue of potential malware and device security when installing from third-party sources has not been overlooked. Still, Google’s Play Store record has not been exactly stellar when it comes to verifying its developers ’apps for security risks. While I’m not going to say that installing apps from a source other than Google Play is just as safe, the goal of this experiment was to see if I could replace what I needed from from third-party sources and whether the device would be usable as such. In the long run, I would definitely prefer that all of these apps be installable directly from Huawei, Amazon or another trusted source such as Microsoft.
Google is sticky, but not irreplaceable
The apps and services I use from Google are more problematic to replace. I use Gmail as my personal and professional email solution and I use G Suite for my workflow. Not being able to edit documents on my smartphone is a downside, but it is by no means a breach of contract since I don’t use my phone for that – it’s something I would do instead on my Mac or iPad.
Aside from the fact that Huawei has to fill its app gallery with third-party apps and convince developers to submit them, there is the problem of Google’s API stickiness in Android itself that developers are used to use for different types of functionality. For example, cartography. Many Android apps, such as Yelp and Twitter, access the Google Maps API when geographic tags are used. On Twitter, tweets that refer to a location display a gray area where a map on Google would appear. But there are many other Google APIs that developers connect to, which Huawei will need to replace with its own or through a partnership to fill these functionality gaps, especially when it comes to monetization.
Also: Go to Google: we choose privacy-friendly alternatives to each Google service
These days, I don’t drive anywhere other than Costco and my local supermarket, or I take takeaways near my home, for obvious reasons. But, when life finally returns to normal, if I continue to use the P40 Pro as my daily Android driver, I will have to replace Google Maps with a different navigation and mapping solution. There are a lot of good ones that don’t depend on Google’s mobile services, such as Waze, Sygic, Tomtom and the very excellent HERE WeGo, which is a company that came from the sale of Microsoft-Nokia assets. Naturally, some of them are paid applications, while others are “freemium”, which means that not all the features are free; they require in-app purchases to fully activate them.
The only problem with using one of these third-party navigation solutions with a current generation Huawei device is that it will not work with Android Auto, which only exists on devices under licensed Google services. I use Android Auto (and Apple CarPlay) in my GM 2016 vehicle to display Google Maps navigation on the main central screen of the car. In order for Huawei to project apps to an automotive screen, the company will need to find another solution, assuming it will be able to work with the auto companies to facilitate connectivity on their respective batteries.
Gmail and Google Calendar are undoubtedly accessible through the well-designed and free Microsoft Outlook client for Android. However, because Google has specific APIs, its native customers will be more optimized for them, especially when it comes to labels and other native functions. But can I read and send emails with my Gmail account? Can I search for things in my inbox? Can I schedule things on my calendar? Yes, but not with Google’s proprietary UX.
The rest of the Microsoft product suite for Android is also excellent and fairly comprehensive, given that the company is currently developing its own Android devices, namely the Surface Duo, which, to date, is still slated for release in late 2020. Other Microsoft apps I like to use (which are easily installable on the P40 Pro via Amazon Appstore and APKPure) include the Microsoft launcher, Cortana, Office Lens, OneDrive and Microsoft Edge, which directly replaces Google Chrome and has become my browser of choice in recent weeks especially for its integrated NewsGuard integration and free.
Another application that I use a lot is Google Voice, which I use for Unified Messaging and Virtual PBX on all my devices using a single phone number that I give, which rings all my devices and stores centralized voicemail . RingCentral, which recently rolled out a new version of its service for unified VoIP, video conferencing and virtual private branch exchange, is one of the few third-party services with equivalent functionality. Potentially, this is a feature that Huawei could offer preloaded via a partnership or on its application gallery.
The only app I really miss from Google is Photos – which is a configuration and forget service that works well for backing up photos to my Google One cloud account. I also use Google Photos on my Android and iOS devices as a unified package to edit photo content, and the built-in tools for quick photo editing are good enough for my use.
Indeed, I can use Microsoft OneDrive for the automated cloud backup, and it works very well. However, the application is not as neat and the integrated photo editing is not there. I had to download a few different editing packages to provide me with similar functionality. Do I expect this to be something that Microsoft will eventually resolve and devote more resources to developers, given that it will launch its own devices soon? Yes.
Getting the product into the hands of American consumers will be a challenge
All of these things are minor inconveniences, and that’s the critical problem here – but for some users, even a small inconvenience looks like an insurmountable obstacle. Since there are functional third-party solutions for maps / navigation, cloud photo storage, VoIP / videoconferencing and Unified Messaging, as well as all types of content consumption, this means that many perceived gaps can be filled through partnerships. Huawei doesn’t need to have the full experience like Google does to be successful. Indeed, Apple does not have all these similar services and its end users also have the choice between third-party solutions.
The main problem – and the most difficult to overcome – is getting Huawei’s products into the hands of consumers with operators reluctant to sell the devices, which would have served as an integrated distribution channel. Its direct Chinese national competitor, Oppo, has mostly managed to overcome this problem with the OnePlus brand, as has ZTE, which was also once on the list of entities, but it now also sells its products directly. Could Huawei sign an agreement with Amazon or Microsoft to resell the devices without violating the entity list restrictions? Potentially, yes, because the inclusion of Huawei’s list of entities does not restrict payments between the parties. Would some of them be ready to enter into such a partnership on such a basis? This is uncertain.
I certainly hope that Huawei will eventually see its products released in the U.S. because I think the technology is great and there is huge potential for value for consumers given the talents and vertical integration capabilities of the business that few others can achieve. It is unclear whether this will happen in the next few years or within the confines of the current administration.
But I have certainly learned from the experience of using the P40 Pro without Google applications that it is not an extreme difficulty to do so, and the perceived shortcomings can certainly be overcome with hard work by the Chinese giant of technology and developers eager to spend more effort to run their applications seamlessly on a new stack of mobile services.
Could you live without Google Mobile Services on your mobile device? Respond and let me know.