AppGallery receives even more interesting applications (November 2019)

A new batch of interesting applications has been added to Huawei’s AppGallery, strengthening, once again, its position as a real alternative to Google’s Play Store.

Artículo disponible en Español | Article disponible en Français

This is not the first nor the last article we’ll be writing and publishing about AppGallery, seeing how many interesting and popular applications are added to Huawei’s app store on a weekly basis. While we’ve talked in detail about the many issues AppGallery has, struggling to keep out fake, stolen and misleading applications, it would appear the company is giving big incentives to various developers to convince them to bring their apps to Huawei users, as it can be seen with past additions.

For instance, a week ago we covered various applications useful in the Belgian market, such as the carrier apps of BASE, “itsme” or the RTBF. Now, a few more applications useful in Belgium have been added, such as the TEC app, with the TEC being the bus company handling the lines between cities on the French side of the country. This application is interesting to check timetables and plan routes, although this can also be done via the web version. It seems that TEC also allows buying tickets through a separate app, but this one is currently not available on AppGallery, which is a shame. Sadly, a few more transport apps are needed for AppGallery to become a viable alternative in Belgium for this specific category. These apps would be the STIB app (Brussels’ public transport operator), the SNCB app (Belgium’s railways) and De Lijn (the Flemish bus/tram operator).

We can also find the application of the French online store “Cdiscount”, which is essentially an alternative to Amazon in France. We also find “alacarta RTVE”, an application allowing users to watch live the Spanish TV channel RTVE:

Huawei has also been promoting a new set of games, such as “YAHTZEE With Buddies Dice Game”, “WWE Champions 2019”, “Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem”, “PvPets: Tanks Battle Royale” and “World of Tanks Blitz”. Some of these titles, such as “Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem” and “World of Tanks Blitz” are already quite popular on the other app stores, so this is a welcome addition:

Last but not least, we see the addition of a few “general purpose” applications which, while they might not be very important individually, they form part of what a good app store should be: have variety and offer apps for every need from the userbase. We see the addition of “Retrica”, which most users might know by name, being an application with a series of filters to edit images. We then have applications developed by Mobisystems, which includes OfficeSuite, a series of dictionaries, PDF viewing tools and an e-mail app. We also see the addition of an application aimed at users wanting to learn Chinese, “Super Chinese”:

Sadly, while quite a few developers are putting their applications on Huawei’s AppGallery, likely due to the financial incentives the company has been providing, it appears that in some cases, the application still relies on some Google services. For example, if one wants to take a monthly subscription for “Super Chinese”, the user will be presented with a Google Play payment window, although this might only be happening because we actually have access to Google’s services.

As we’ve pointed out in past articles, Huawei’s AppGallery is slowly becoming a viable alternative to the Google Play Store, although it is still missing important applications needed by many users in their everyday life. While it is currently possible to wishlist apps, it is unclear whether this changes anything. Huawei says on their website that “we will try our best to find the apps you want”, so this could be interpreted as the company attempting to contact developers of wishlisted applications, but it could also be interpreted as “we will try to bring onboard as many developers and applications as possible, hopefully including the one you want”.