Huawei is testing its own search app.

Photo by 🇨🇭 Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash

After the restrictions imposed by the US government, Huawei was forced to stop using Google app services on its new devices, which led Huawei to start working on their own app services as an alternative to Google provided basic services and apps. Huawei already released the alternatives to Google's core apps like G-mail, Photos, Calendar, etc.

Huawei was working on its own App Store which was called AppGallery, as they can't use Google Play Store too. Now Huawei was working on a search app as an alternative to Google search which was also not present on new Huawei devices, as reported by XDA Developers.

According to XDA developers, a Reddit user /u/beingnull informed them that Huawei is recruiting users in the UAE to test the new Huawei Search application, they've tried the new search app by Huawei by themselves. However, since it's still in the beginning stage, the search app by Huawei was not as elaborative as Google's search app.

Huawei's search app will basically let you search the web pages, there are other shortcuts in the app like sports, calculator, unit conversion, and weather. Users can turn off their search history and can select the region and language of the search in the settings, the app has a dark theme too which can be toggled in  EMUI 10 devices.

XDA Developers noted that, 

"The User Agreement states that users "must have a Huawei ID" to use the service and that the service is "only available in the Huawei Device as an app or embedded search filed in Huawei services, such as Assistant (i.e. Search is not publically available in the web)."

This app is still in the testing stage, we won't know when it will come to the new Huawei devices that didn't have Google app services, recently Google warned Huawei customers not to sideload Google apps in unlicensed Huawei devices for the sake of privacy reasons. Google was interesting in working with Huawei, so they applied a license that will allow them to work with blacklisted Chinese companies including Huawei.

Even if they start working with Google again and are licensed to use Google services on their Huawei smartphones, Huawei may still want to work on their own services to use in situations like this.