Last Thursday the new range of Huawei Mate 30 was officially presented, with his two new phones. Despite the good specs, good design, or good cameras, is the absence of Google applications and Google Play services what has grabbed the headlines the most in this case, as well as the use of an open source version of Android.
The blockade that the company suffers by the United States It is something that fully affects this range of Huawei Mate 30. For this reason, the phones are forced to use an open source version of Android, and not have Google applications or services available.
No Google Apps and Google Play services
Google Apps will not come installed by default on phones, something that has been rumored these weeks. There will therefore not be Google Play Services installed in these models natively in these Huawei Mate 30. Which means that the phones do not have Google Play, the application store, or applications such as Maps, Gmail or Assistant installed by default. Also, they could not be downloaded at first.
Although from Huawei it has been confirmed that access to them would be facilitated, but the way in which this would be possible has not been specified. The Huawei Mate 30 would not be the first phones on the market to not have Google Play services. Many models of Chinese brands arrive without themOnly in this case the installation would be complex, although the Chinese brand will unlock the bootloader, so it should be possible.
Therefore, phones are not going to have them natively. Turning on a phone in this range will not be like in other Android models, because we will not have the same applications or log in with a Google account, as is the case so far. Although the company gives guarantees that these Huawei Mate 30 they will be compatible with applications such as YouTube, Gmail or Google Maps. Only they will not come installed by default and at the moment the method that will be provided to users to have access to them is unknown.
Once the applications are installed, everything would work normally on the phone, as we are used to. The doubt so far is how will it be possible to have Google Play Services or Google applications on one of these devices. This is something that is currently being worked on, as they have said from the manufacturer itself, so in a few weeks there should be some more clarity in that regard.
What do the Huawei Mate 30 have instead?
The absence of Google Play Services and Google applications is supplemented by its own services. The company leaves us with HSM (Huawei Mobile Services) on both phones, in addition to having its own application store, App Gallery. An important investment is being made by the firm to expand the number of applications in it, currently more than 11.000, so that users who have these Huawei Mate 30 have access to them.
In addition, since the signing it was confirmed that HSM involves the introduction of your own GSM, GPS and maps. So services that are essential in Android phones will not be lacking in these models. Most likely, the firm will use its own maps, which they already announced they were developing and which would be official in October. A kind of Google Maps, but from the company itself.
Some of the usual applications on Android will also be replaced. This lock prevents Google Assistant from being used on phones. Therefore, the company has left us with Huawei Assistant, an assistant for these Huawei Mate 30, which will supply many of the functions that we already know in the Google assistant usually. You can perform actions on the phone, such as calls, read messages, open applications or many more. Although most likely it will not have all the actions or functions that the Google assistant normally offers us.
Android Open Source
The other big change in the Huawei Mate 30 is the use of Android open source. The United States blockade forces them to resort to the open source part of the operating system, available to anyone who wants to use it. While they give it EMUI 10, its customization layer, to obtain the experience we are used to on Android.
Users will not have to worry about updates in this case, since Android open source, in its version 10, will receive security updates at all times. So phones will be protected from threats. Future versions of the operating system will also be received, in this open source version, without Google applications.
EMUI 10 interface will be updated too, surely moving to EMUI 11 next year. In this sense, there should not be too many changes compared to previous versions of the layer.
HarmonyOS as an operating system
At the beginning of August, Huawei presented its own operating system, called HarmonyOS. The Chinese brand has plans to use it in many types of devices, but mainly within the field of Internet of the Things. So it is something that we can see in products such as televisions, speakers and many more. The use of it in telephones is not ruled out.
Although HarmonyOS is not yet ready to be used on phonesThat is why it has not arrived in the Huawei Mate 30. The Chinese brand says that its priority is to use Android, but the use of this operating system is something that is also considered. Although in some media there is talk about making use of this system, the transition could take a couple of years. So it's something that could be in the works, but it's going to take a while to be official anyway.
We must not rule out that in the near future it will end up using this operating system in the brand's phones. Especially if the relationship with the United States remains negativeBut the brand keeps trying to use Android on its phones.