Case Study Solutions to Google Maps Loading Failure for an App Released on AppGallery

Question

After I have released an app on HUAWEI AppGallery, the app failed to load Google Maps. However, the problem did not occur in the same app released on Google Play Store.

Answer 1

Google has restricted Google Mobile Services (GMS), i.e. Google Play Services, to be used on Huawei phones with newer models released after May 2019. Those phone models do not have GMS installed. GMS services are the services package name mostly started with com.google.android.gms including maps. New Google Map SDK 3.1 beta version package starts with com.google.android.libraries.maps. However, it still lightly depends on the com.google.android.gms GMS packages.

Google also checks the phone models if they are authorized phone models with Google Play Store. The past 2 years Huawei phone models are not on the authorized model list and could not install apps directly from Google Play Store.

If you have an app published on Google App Store and load the Google maps correctly but not the version published on Huawei AppGallery, the problem could be coming from the Google GMS restrictions.

It is recommended to switch your app from using GMS Google Map SDK to Huawei HMS Maps Kit, or 3rd party maps SDK.

Answer 2

Huawei does not have a licence to use Google Services anymore. That means you cannot use Google Services directly with the App.

You can use Googles API services:

https://developers.google.com/maps/web-services/client-library?hl=de

Or you could use e.g. OpenStreetMap:

https://www.openstreetmap.de/

(German Service, very powerfull)