The embattled Chinese technology giant, Huawei as a result of the US ban, had earlier embarked on building own operating system, Harmony OS (Hongmeng OS in Chinese) as Android alternative.
Also, the company is working on its own bundle of alternative services to Google Mobile Services (GMS), know as Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), which comprises of AppGallery, the Play Store alternative, and several other services. Now, the tech gaint is reported to be testing a dedicated search app that will replace Google app on all its devices.
The company invested a whopping $3 billion to HMS development in order to free itself from Google's clutches.
The Hint on development of Huawei Search app
The hint on Huawei's development of search app was by Redditor /u/beingnull who disclosed that the company is recruiting users in UAE for the testing of new search app.
Unlike Google App which comprises Google search, Assistant, Lens, Google Podcasts, and many other services, the Huawei Search app is a basic search application that only allow users to input a search query for webpages, videos, news articles, or images results. Albeit, there is a weather feature, which brings up a widget of 24-hour forecast powered by the Huafeng-AccuWeather, a joint venture of the China Meteorological Service.
Additionally, there are shortcuts for sports, conversion, and calculator, while users can view their search history or toggle it off for privacy, and also give feedback, change their region and language, and toggle safe search, or change the app’s search scope, which controls what the Search app can search.
What powers the Huawei Search App?
The search app service is operated by Aspiegel, Huawei’s subsidiary company based in Ireland, with several of Huawei's mobile software services handled by Aspiegel since 2019.
According to the Huawei Search User Agreement, users “must have a Huawei ID” to use the search service and the service is “only available on Huawei Devices as an app or embedded search file in Huawei services, such as Assistant (i.e. Search is not publicly available on the web).”
The Huawei Search App also support EMIU 10 dark theme and seems to be a pretty decent search app, but certainly not advanced enough to replace Google app for now.
No comments