The Huawei Mate 30, and Mate 30 Pro smartphones, announced on September 19, are the first from the manufacturer to launch without official Google support. They run EMUI 10, based on AOSP Android 10, but instead of GMS (Google Mobile Services) they arrive with HMS (Huawei Mobile Services). This decision was forced upon Huawei as a direct effect of the U.S. ban, even though CEO Richard Yu reiterated that Huawei would like to continue using Android officially licensed.

But relying on its own mobile services comes with a caveat: the Huawei AppGallery doesn’t feature most of the apps that you are likely using, including popular apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, and more, not to mention the inability to use Google apps like Gmail, Maps, or YouTube.

While you can probably find third party apps on other app stores, like Amazon, for instance, you’ll have to live without the Google apps, or learn to use the web version. Even so, some third party apps might crash in case they rely on files that are included in the Google package for services.

…but there is a workaround we are currently testing, and, luckily (sadly, really), we have plenty of time to test this out, as the phone will start rolling out this month to Asia/Pacific, and October (who knows, really?) to other regions. The U.S. is out of discussion, and EU countries where the phones will be available are all wearing a question mark.

For now, here’s proof that it is really possible, to have the full Android experience on the Mate 30 Pro, complete with the Play Store, Google’s apps, achieved with an easy one-click solution which involves downloading and executing (sideloading, really), a single APK file. We’ll have details on how to achieve this soon, as we test out the reliability of the solution.