At CES 2018, AT&T was on the verge of announcing a partnership with an ascending smartphone company to offer its latest flagship, but the carrier suddenly reversed course; a pending announcement with Verizon met a similarly abrupt demise. These scuttled plans would turn out to be the closest Huawei would come to launching its smartphones in the U.S. Since that time, the company--once vying with Samsung for the world's #1 smartphone company--has seen its smartphone fortunes fall precipitously. Far worse than failing to enter the U.S., its share in markets outside of China has plummeted as the Trump and Biden administrations have banned it from licensing Google Mobile Services. The key collection of applications and APIs that enables Google goodies such as the Play Store elevates Android smartphone experiences beyond the baseline Android Open Source Project. While a unique case, Huawei's ban from carrier portfolios has been but one i...