Huawei’s Play Store alternative has gotten better, but it’s the apps that count - Android

If you’re looking to purchase any of the new Huawei P40 series, you’ll have to get comfortable using Huawei’s App Gallery rather than the Google Play Store. All thanks to the US trade ban. In previous years, the App Gallery felt like an afterthought, which is understandable given the dominance of Google Play. Now Huawei relies on its store exclusively, so is App Gallery in good enough shape for users to find what they need?

I want to preface the bulk of this article by acknowledging that the App Gallery does not have anywhere near the level of support as the Google Play Store. It’s only roughly a year since the US debacle began and building up developer support takes considerable time and investment. Huawei is gradually ramping up developer support and attempting to attract bigger developers, but we have to temper expectations.

That said, the dearth of commonly used apps is hard to ignore. For me, work essentials like Slack and Zoom are notable absences. Many popular apps like Facebook, Netflix, and WhatsApp aren’t available on the store either. However, Huawei has a neat trick for some of these apps that aren’t yet hosted on its store but are available in APK form from official sources. App Gallery simply links out to official websites where you can grab and install the APK manually. You can tell these apps by their “Get” rather than “Install” button.

App Gallery offers workarounds for some Google and other popular apps.

Huawei is also clearly working hard to try and support those who rely on Google apps. Google Maps, Translate, and Drive are all accessible in web page format via a search in the App Gallery. These can be added to the home-screen for quick access in lieu of an installed app. This will certainly feel like an alien concept for casual Android users, but it’s a reasonable workaround in the short term.

I should note that Huawei’s Phone Clone application can copy many apps from your old phone. Not all Android apps rely on GMS to function properly and these work just fine in my experience. In fact, even Google Maps works when copied over. However these apps will eventually miss out on updates and therefore might not function in the long term.

Out with the old, in with the new

Shortly before the arrival of the Huawei P40 series, the App Gallery underwent a notable makeover. The interface has seen a few tweaks and Huawei has made it somewhat easier for new users to find the apps they’re most likely to be after. These can be found under the “New User Kits” on the homepage.

Perhaps the most important change though is that the questionable apps that used to dominate the store have (mostly) been shoved out of sight. The App Gallery now happily presents its better known apps front and center on the storefront. Here you’ll find the likes of Snapchat, TikTok, Deezer, Tidal, Telegram, and others. They’re still interwoven with the odd more dubious app when searching, but this is a vast improvement from the situation just a few months ago.

As an example, the old app store presented an array of knock-off or imitation apps when searching for the likes of Spotify or Netflix. See the images below captured from October 2019. Thankfully I couldn’t find any of these apps in the new 2020 App Gallery, they seem to have been removed. That said, Huawei’s store isn’t completely free of imitation apps and name abusers.

The imitation apps above are no longer found in the new store, but poor quality apps remain rife.

Despite the improved visibility of popular apps, the store still has issues when searching. While some searches provide reasonable alternatives if a specific app isn’t available, this isn’t the case for every query. Some are still far too linked to keyword matches rather than actual usefulness. For example, a search for “music” returns a drum pad app as the top result, followed by some music players and questionable “MP3 download” apps with one star reviews. It’s hard not to wonder how secure some of these apps are. Meanwhile, popular and highly rated streaming apps like Deezer and Tidal don’t even make the list.

App discovery is still the biggest problem with the App Gallery and needs addressing promptly. Even if Huawei manages to bring more major developers on board, it will be a wasted effort if users can’t discover these apps on their own.

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Quality of life features

Huawei has been making strides to brings the App Gallery up to speed with more popular stores by introducing several quality of life improvements.

For starters, apps are now sorted into categories that are easy enough to navigate. This feature is just as easy to use as the Play Store. When it comes to app pages, the App Gallery actually makes better use of space for app descriptions, sharing, etc, than Google. App ratings and reviews are easy to read, and it feels very familiar to discover other apps made by developers or to find similar apps. However, it’s telling how few active App Gallery users there are though, as many apps are yet to be rated and few have more than a handful of detailed reviews.