The Huawei controversy has been an ongoing mess for many months now. Anytime we see any glimmer of hope for its resolution, all of it just seems to poof away. The trade war between the US and China isn’t expected to slow down anytime soon either. Consequently, since the whole Huawei thing seems to have stemmed out of that, it probably isn’t going to get resolved either. However, despite many restrictions, including the exclusion of Google Play Services from its devices, Huawei has continued to make some seriously impressive devices, like the recent Mate 30 Pro.
Google Play Services are a critical part of Android experience, and you absolutely need them for your basic smartphone functionality, at least outside China.
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro is a phenomenal phone with some astonishingly impressive features like the 7680 fps slow-mo video. Until now, buying the phone has not been much of a problem for most people since you could sideload Google Play Services. This was done using a Chinese enterprise management app called LZPlay. However, sadly, LZPlay is no longer online meaning no Google Play Services for the Mate 30 Pro anymore.
No Google Play Services for the Huawei Mate 30 Pro
LZPlay was used by most Mate 30 Pro users to install Google Play services, including the Play Store. However, the way LZPlay managed to install Google Play on the Huawei device is not exactly ‘safe’. In order to install Google services, you’d need a deep access to the system. Usually Google installs its own apps using something called stubs, which give it that access.
However, since Huawei is banned from using Google apps, there are no stubs. So, the app LZPlay uses a special “undocumented API” that grants access to the app to make system level changes. The interesting thing, though, is that there is no way for LZPlay to gain this access without the permission from Huawei. So, it seems like Huawei itself is involved with LZPlay in some capacity so its users can have Google Play Services.
Obviously, no Google Play on Android means no sales, so this could have been a desperate measure from Huawei. When the dots were connected by some people online, the website for LZPlay immediately went offline. Huawei has also declined to comment on the situation meaning that there is definitely something spurious going on around here.
Huawei can’t be trusted
While the company still makes some of the best smartphones in the world, shady actions like this make Huawei an extremely suspicious entity. They have been caught faking a lot of things, including adverts for their cameras, in the past. This new revelation may have just been a step too far though. Yes, the company is desperately trying to retain its market share, which has been hit hard by the recent restrictions. However, secretly enabling a third-party to do the job for them just seems distasteful.
Furthermore, the company doesn’t even allow bootloader unlocking on its devices. So, users cannot even root them and install custom ROMs or sideload Google Play. Nevertheless, the future doesn’t exactly look bright for the company and its devices either.
If you already own an older Huawei device, you probably have nothing to worry about. However, if you were thinking about getting a Huawei Mate 30 Pro or any other upcoming device from the company, it would be wise to consider other options.