China war with Google, moving to Huawei
Google services are off on Huawei, how it affect my app?
Context : Google vs Huawei war
“Using big companies api’s will make app more stable and maintainable”
Nothing more false and misleading. Year 2020 shown how big companies are related to big politics. One of good examples is USA bans China, China bans USA and Google and Huawei is great example how big politics affect our customers and products.
New reality new problems to solve, cross platform LEVEL UP.
Decision ware made to support Huawei Store
Many doubts come:
- will my app crash and what will fail?
- what google services do we use?
- how is the publishing process
Publishing: How to login to Huawei developer console?
https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/console
Registration for personal account requires passing Scan of ID and Credit Card, so lucky for me I was added to enterprise account.
Even on not validated account you can check if your app will work, you can access test options for around 1 day before it you will need pass valid data again.
Console restarts many times and you have to reenter credentials many times / sms code. Console is work in progress and you can feel it but overall usage is acceptable and almost good.
What can fail?
All what uses Google services.
What is affected and can be replaces?
How check if app is installing correct and runs?
After uploading app you can run several tests as does app install and some random path are clicked.
How to do deeper testing without real device?
Console enable uploading apk and testing it in browser.
Does app crash on Pages which are using Google services?
NO app didn’t crash , services simply don’t work.
Map page: one special UI case
App is using native google xamarin component in such case navigation to Page with mam worked but instead of map text was displayed: “google services not available” on web console and nothing in real device.
Lucky for us or service also have web and SPA version so embedding web view map inside xamarin app worked well.
For NON HUAWEI Android devices we still use native google xamarin map, is need that need rethinking.
Xamarin and Huawei Analitycs:
If need go threw documentation you will see that you need to do xamarin to native binding what is big pain and struggle which I had go threw
Lucky now you have :
Which I tested and it works very good, Thanks John !
Summary:
Huawei console enable testing and running your APK via browser, which gives same impression as testing on real device.
Not working google services are not killing app.
Map component is not displayed, using web view is nice bypass.
If you want to replace google services with Huawei ones it is now just installing and using John Thiriet nugget.
What is more? Geo location, here app didn’t use google but 3rd party provider.
In conclusion Huwei team smartly replaced, mocked google services, console is work in progress but usable.
After migration Trust in big companies services as google dived very low.
Small companies 3rd parties for location and map bypassed migration issues, as well open source project made me feel more secure.
Supporting more that 2 platforms pushed cross platform thinking to next level.