Ever since US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to prevent US companies from supplying products and services to HUAWEI, the road has certainly not been easy for the Chinese smartphone brand. The most damaging fallout from the executive order was undoubtedly for HUAWEI no longer being able to market new smartphones and tablets with Google Play Services and, by extension, not even with the Google Play Store. Since May 2019, the Chinese company has been working to persuade developers and users to prefer or otherwise use their alternative Android-based ecosystem.
We speak clearly of the HMS or the Huawei Mobile Services which are nothing other than the corresponding services of the Chinese company. These benefit from the HUAWEI experience in terms of chipsets, mobile devices and cloud functionality and include a full range of HMS Core services and tools and software for development and testing, as well as key applications for HUAWEI devices such as the HUAWEI AppGallery, HUAWEI Browser, HUAWEI Video and more.
[HWUVIDEO = "2978"] HUAWEI Petal Search: this is how IT WORKS! [/ HWUVIDEO]But HUAWEI knows there are still improvements to be made, particularly in reducing friction in their users who are trying to stay brand loyal but still need to search, find and download apps that are familiar to them. Every day AppGallery, the Chinese company's virtual app store, is enriched with applications and services but it is clear that something is still missing and it sometimes happens that the search process is not immediate. This is why HUAWEI has introduced Petal Search: a real search engine that aims to improve not only the distribution of apps from the AppGallery but also and above all the search process for them by also adding other useful features to the user.
Why was Petal Search created?
To understand why HUAWEI created Petal Search, let's take a step back and try to understand what the company is trying to achieve and partly solve in recent months. The executive order that President Trump signed last year resulted in a ban on US companies from selling certain goods and services to Huawei. Consequently, Google is unable to enter into new contracts for the distribution of mobile applications with HUAWEI, preventing the Chinese company from distributing smartphones with Google Mobile Services (i.e. the so-called GMS) and therefore a suite of proprietary Google applications such as Gmail, Google Maps but also YouTube or Google Chrome and more.
AppGallery: Huawei's alternative to the Play Store
Given Google's squeeze on Android app distribution, the lack of the Play Store means the average user loses their largest source of app supply. Without the presence of the Play Store, users have to make do by using a different variety of sources to download the apps they usually use on a smartphone. A search that often leads to apps that are not always secure or that are not always updated to the latest version.
HUAWEI's response to the absence of the Play Store on its new devices has come in the form of the AppGallery. It's a real virtual application store where developers from all over the world can release their apps as they do with Android and iOS. AppGallery is already receiving a lot of attention from developers and day by day it is becoming more and more populated with known applications that get a proprietary version even on HMS.
HMS Core: services according to HUAWEI
Google Play Services provides a series of APIs for developers that are widely used on the apps in the Android Play Store. In this case, not having Google services on HUAWEI smartphones means either not finding the application to download or being able to download it but not having the perfect functioning especially in localization or maybe even in push notifications.
Hence, HUAWEI's response to the absence of Google Play Services came in the form of Huawei Mobile Services (HMS). The company had been working on this HMS system long before the trade ban went into effect and actually this was good for not delaying user support too much. The commercial ban simply forced Huawei to increase its investment in developers and its platform, improving its competitiveness with those of Google.
AppGallery and HMS: the gap from Play Store and GMS
HUAWEI has clearly not given up on Android and in its new smartphones the system is Google's Open Source system with the absence of the Play Store and GMS. In their place there are HMS and AppGallery and what one wonders is how much gap exists between the two virtual stores of the two companies?
Let's say immediately that the HUAWEI solution, even if it started in the background in the Shenzhen headquarters for a few years, will never have the same coverage that the Google Play Store has today. This is obvious. In fact, HUAWEI firmly believes in the future of its service ecosystem and does it well. However, there is still a need for a bridging solution that reconciles the needs of the present with its vision of the future. Ideally, popular apps are hosted on the AppGallery created directly by the same developers who make them for Android or iOS. However, times are indefinite and what worries users is the impossibility to date of not being able to wait indefinitely for an app to be released in the official AppGallery store.
HUAWEI is maximizing this by trying to limit the development time of an application by simplifying the HMS platform as much as possible. Some users have resorted to installing apps from other sources as an alternative, some of which are 100% usable.
It is clear, however, that the user wants everything to go directly to HUAWEI and not through a maze of different solutions. It takes only one reliable source to download applications, hence the idea of introducing Petal Search, a "new search tool" that allows users to "find everything they need" by switching from a single app. In short, the Petal Search app is a search engine for Android apps on HUAWEI smartphones.
Petal Search: the app to make you feel at home
Petal Search is an app created by HUAWEI as a solution for users who are not familiar with alternative app distribution solutions. It is a concrete help to familiarize yourself with HUAWEI post ban Google smartphones and above all to quickly search for apps and more.
We can also name Petal Search as a true app distribution aggregator or as a search engine that focuses precisely on searching for Android apps. In fact, HUAWEI has seen fit to file a trademark in Europe for Petal Search just like as a search engine. The Petal Search experience is centered around a search widget that users can tap directly on the main screen to open the search bar that will allow them to search for apps and online games as well as news.
The "For You" tab in the app shows local news, although Petal Search's main purpose is not to show the news or find answers online, but only to find and download Android apps and games, the Shenzhen-based company still wanted to integrate a kind of Discover or Google News that we know is now always present in Android smartphones.
One will most likely wonder about the strangeness of this name. In this case the answer comes from the Chinese. The first part of HUAWEI ie "Hua" can be roughly translated into Petal and hence the name Petal Search of the search app.
Petal Search has been released on all HUAWEI smartphones with the latest update of the EMUI that we recall has reached the version based on Android 10. Users with Huawei smartphones in most Western European countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Portugal and Switzerland have received the search application and can therefore use it to find everything.
To speed up distribution, however, HUAWEI has also released Petal Search as an app in itself, finding it directly in the AppGallery and installing it on your smartphone. Interestingly, the application can also be installed on non-Huawei smartphones, although in this case it will be necessary to use Huawei Mobile Services to make it work.
Petal Search: installation, privacy and permissions
When you first open Petal Search, you are greeted by some configuration screens that inform users about everything related to the privacy of the app and the use of permissions. In this case if you are already logged in with your HUAWEI account, you will be informed that the app may collect certain usage information including account information (including relevant Huawei account details), device information (including screen size and time zone), information network (including your IP address) and information on the use of the service (including ad clicks, search queries, search keywords, search language and URLs clicked ).
All data is sent to Aspiegel Limited, the subsidiary of HUAWEI based in Ireland, which means that all this data collection is subject to the strict GDPR of the European Union.
It is interesting to find out how HUAWEI claims that this data is collected to "provide only and exclusively search suggestions, advertisements and personalized news but also for analysis and product information purposes". A clear and transparent policy, for those in doubt, which reveals how app search data is shared with "news partners", which likely includes the two European search engines that HUAWEI has partnered with to search by Petal. Furthermore, the Chinese company claims that search query data will never be linked or associated with natural persons, which suggests that all of this will not be synchronized with your account. And actually once we logged out, by logging in again with our Huawei ID, the search history was gone. Great news.
Even more interesting is the possibility of using Petal Search even without having to log in with a HUAWEI account. In this case, without logging in with the HUAWEI ID, the user will not be able to synchronize all the pages that will be added gradually to the favorites.
Most of the permissions that Petal Search requires are also optional. The only authorization that you must necessarily grant is the "archive" authorization, in this case the app will be able to save the downloads in the internal memory of the phone. Petal Search in this case creates a new folder in the default Images, Music, Movies and Downloads folders called "PetalSearch" where the downloaded files are stored, so that the app does not clutter up the memory.
Practical research with Petal Search
After installing Petal Search, the first thing to do is check the "Search" tab which remains in the center of the other two that we will see shortly. Here you can find and download the Android apps for your HUAWEI device. This is the most important and effective section of Petal Search. Without a search query, by default Petal Search will show a set of apps from 3 different categories: "Essential Apps", "Top Local Apps" and "Trending Apps". The apps displayed in these 3 categories are taken from a list of popular apps in your region and can be changed in the app settings. In this case for Italy among the local apps we find TikTok but also Telegram, Amazon and RaiPlay. Among the essential ones instead we find Zoom, PicsArt or still other games of the moment. Finally, on the most downloaded ones there are games that are all the rage right now.
In the Petal Search settings, accessed by tapping the "Personal" tab, you can first find the search history, activate the incognito mode (which disables the search history), see the downloaded apps and if there are any updates to perform on these downloaded apps. Then there are the Settings that allow you to change the language and the geographical area, the SafeSearch which practically concerns the Parental Control for searches that can be set Strict, Moderate or completely disabled and therefore the activation of personalized recommendations. Then there is also the Comments section to send reports to HUAWEI and the Information section that allows you to get information on the version of the Petal Search app.
The section instead `` For You '' as mentioned shows the news of the moment. Graphically it is somewhat reminiscent of the Discover of Google News with the news taken from the major online newspapers and with news of all kinds. In this case, once you have entered the news, you can read it directly on Petal Search in a few lines or learn more by opening the news always with the browser integrated into Petal.
Returning to the search for applications. To get a particular application you will need to enter the application name directly into the search query. At this point Petal Search will return all the results in a specific list. In this case Petal Search uses the following sources for the search results of its apps:
Search prioritizes displaying app lists directly in Huawei's AppGallery, provided there is an exact match for what was searched. AppGallery lists are featured prominently at the top of the results with the “AppGallery” badge above the app icon and a “Verified” badge to inform that HUAWEI has verified the legitimacy of the list. Later, if a particular app is available for download from the developer's official website, Petal's search will link to that page. The first result in a WhatsApp search, for example, will show a link to the official download page for Android. As for the search results of other online app repositories, they will be sorted based on the relevance of their query, store authority (based on Huawei's internal metrics), page timeliness, and other undisclosed factors.
In general, it appears that the search results of APKPure and Aptoide rank above APKMonk and APKCenter. In some rare cases, Google Play Store links will be shown, although this only seems to happen for very few applications.
There are some apps and services that can be accessed better through a web browser rather than a mobile app (mainly because they refuse to work without Google Play Services). Let's talk about apps like YouTube, Google Photos, Google Calendar, Google Keep, Gmail, Google Drive and more. For these cases, Petal Search provides a link to open the mobile website for the app in the default browser. Even for services like Uber that have a verified app within the AppGallery, Petal Search still shows an additional option to access the mobile website. The idea here is to inform the user of available alternatives at hand in case a solution is not entirely satisfactory.
Once tapped on the "Install" button on any of the search results pages, you will be redirected to the app download page or start downloading the app immediately. In this HUAWEI seems to have worked a lot on the APIs of the various online stores for searching and downloading apps so that users do not have to wait for the various redirects but everything happens practically immediately. Clearly each app has its own page with various information and above all with some screenshots that allow you to have a vision of how the application works and how it is graphically.
Petal Search: conclusions
Petal Search is therefore all of this. A very useful application for those who are preparing to buy a HUAWEI smartphone with the so-called HMS instead of the usual Google GMS. Petal Search does nothing but remove a step that can be considered essential for the average user. There will no longer be the compulsion to browse around multiple Android application stores, perhaps even with the risk of not finding applications or rather finding them out of date or unofficial. Petal Search allows it to be exploited as a real easy-to-use app aggregator and also with the possibility of updating installed apps as well as searching for news.
Petal Search is an app that clearly reveals the need for users and also for HUAWEI to find a solution for downloading an application and installing it in the shortest possible time just like with the Play Store of Google. It was also created in order not to have confusion among the multiple application stores that can sometimes be not only misleading but also dangerous. Petal Search works well and does just what it was designed for, which is to simplify the results and the use of the smartphone with HMS. It has improved compared to the first versions just as AppGallery has also improved, which today sees most of the applications also present on the Play Store.
The latter has been around for 10 years and it is clear that its popularity for developers cannot be surpassed by HUAWEI in the short term. Indeed, the Chinese company shows great perseverance in allowing users to have a foothold in the app market. A remarkable effort that is made by HUAWEI that does not want to meet the wishes of a president of the United States perhaps a little too patriotic. HMS are growing just as HUAWEI has grown in recent years, which still wants to allow users to take advantage of their always appreciated smartphones.