It’s Like Buying A Ferrari Only To Realise The Engine Says Fellali

Huawei finally launched the much anticipated Mate 30 series last week and while we all knew that the phones would have to ship without any sort of Google Mobile Service installed, what we didn’t know was what the company would do to get around the ban.

As it turns out, the answer is nothing.

First off, credit where credit is due. The phones look great. I mean, it’s hard to unsee the washing machine design on the back but in terms of hardware, everything is top notch, and it had to be. Huawei have found themselves in the awkward position of having to release an Android phone without GMS. That’s almost unthinkable, and i’m only using the word almost because they literally just did it—Rule of thumb, you CAN’T release a device without GMS and expect it to sell, and i’m pretty sure Huawei knows this.

Case in point, the company spent less than a minute talking about the Android ban during a presentation that lasted nearly two hours. That’s almost laughable. It was excruciatingly obvious that Huawei wanted to keep the presentation solely about the impressive hardware specs. The closest they got to anything Google related was confirmation that the operating system would be EMUI10 sitting atop AOSP—the unlicensed, open-source, version of Android.

You’d have to be crazy to spend 1100 Euros on a device with no access to the Google Play Store. That means no YouTube, Gmail, and Google Maps. There will also be no proper Facebook or Netflix apps either, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The android experience as you know it, will be immensely different.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen

Huawei is in a bad place right now and it’s agonizingly obvious. You can tell by CEO Richard Yu’s statements in recent weeks. First he says that the Mate 30 would have an unlocked bootloader:

“We limited [bootloader unlocking] because we wanted to guarantee more security for consumers, But this time we will leave more freedom for the consumers so they can do more customization by themselves. So we are planning to let consumers do that.”

Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei

As it turns out, this will not be the case. Shortly after his statement, the company came out and said that it has no plans to do so. For some context, Huawei actually outlawed the practice of bootloader unlocking some time ago for security reasons. It says a lot about how desperate the company is if the CEO is saying things like this. So much for prioritizing security, huh?

He also responded to questions about whether or not the Mate 30 pro would have any alternative app stores pre-loaded unto the phone by recommending that users try out AppGallery, Huawei’s own app store. This would’ve been great and all except there’s just one problem— Huawei’s AppGallery is home to 45,000 piece of s*** subpar apps . The Google Play Store has 2.7 million. There is also no Whatsapp, Facebook and Netflix on Huawei’s app store so it’s hard to tell what he’s been smoking but I too might want some.

As great as their phones are, Huawei’s problem has always been it’s bloatware and it’s knack for talking s*** . Just a month ago, Huawei were championing the Harmony OS as a replacement that’s potentially faster than Android. As it transpired, that was not the case at all.

A ray of hope or more BS?

Today, there was news of a Huawei Insider speaking to Forbes about how easy it is to install Google apps unto the device; it will apparently take less than 10 minutes. In fact, there are even tutorials online, and all the early signs seem to indicate that this method is promising.

However, you have to remember: You’re installing unauthorised software on your brand new device. If anything goes wrong, its completely on you. On top of that, your device will not be protected by Google Play’s built in security. So if things do go wrong, you can rest assured that it will go very wrong.

The phone is set to launch on the 26th of September in China, where I have no doubt it will be an absolute hit. In the west however, is where the question marks lie. Smartphones purchases shouldn’t be a risky business, but then again, your money, your choice.

Is it sad that unrelated politics is getting in the way of a fine piece of technology? Absolutely.

Do I feel bad for Huawei? Absolutely not.