Ionic 4: Google Places API not working on debug Android App

I have implemented the Google Places API in my Ionic 4 app, calling the URL directly (no library involved).

Got my key setup in the Google Console as:

and am calling like so:

var url = https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/autocomplete/json?key=<my-key-here>&input=some+string

      this._http.get(url).toPromise().then(res => {
        alert(res)
        let response = <PlacesAPIResponse>res;      
        resolve(response);
      })
      .catch(error => {
        resolve(null);
      });

Works fine in the browser, but the request won’t send from the debug Android app.

Am I missing a setting somewhere?

For anyone having this issue - you can’t use the places rest api directly within an app, they don’t let you.

My workaround was to offload the request to my backend api, which I call first instead, it makes the request for me, sends me back the response from the places api and that deals with the CORS problem.

It’s one more HTTP call, but it works fine.