Thank you. Your second paragraph is what, IMHO, the discussion about switching from Android to Win10Mo should look like. You evaluate what you do with your phone *today*, you check whether parity could be achieved *today*, you decide.
There is no "app gap", there is a gap between what you want to do with your phone and what the phone is capable of.
Well there is no phone in existence that operates like I'd like it too. In fact I am generally dissatisfied with the squinting, ape arming and software quality, even the whole "have to remove from pocket to get something done" or "fragile glass brick". Typing is quick but energy inefficient and inaccurate. Seems like a fill in technology, a bridge to something much better.
But for now, it has its uses.
As far as my Windows Mobile experience, apart from short exposure to 6.5 CE, it has all been Windows 10. I have updated my 635 from Denim to Windows 10 Insider preview as soon as it charged after unpacking and never looked back. It got replaced by 640 and, later 650. I am really happy to see how far the platform has progressed in those years, but I still cannot make it my daily driver, because, unlike you, I am using fair amount of services, Win10Mo ecosystem is not able to provide.
Whilst studies show most people use around six core apps only, there are many useful niche applications, that serve functional purposes for people doing particular things. Travellers for example, use more apps.
And last (and certainly the least) - I do know that Signal is not the only encrypted service. Feel free to replace it with Hangouts, Allo, iMessage, replacing "encrypted" with "unreliable/limited/shooting lasers from its rear end", the point would remain the same - nobody is going to switch messaging platform just because *you* decided to get a new phone. Hence, this is just another checkpoint to evaluate.
I expect people to use the common interfaces in communication, like WhatsApp as opposed to snapchat, or messenger as opposed to viber. And I expect people to be able to meet in the middle if they want to talk with someone - whether that's using text messages, phone calls, skypes, meeting in person or whatever works for both of us. Someone unprepared to make any tiny accommodation for others, whether in business or in personal life, is probably not worth communicating with IMO.
Me for example, while WhatsApp is popular enough, I don't have friends that use it. Skype is far more popular with the people I know, particularly video calls for their intimacy over text (for which the people I know generally use emails or texts). But occasionally I'll meet someone who wants to use it, for whatever reason, even though to me, its pretty much the same as messenger which more people use, and I am happy to install it for those people, just to talk to them.
Different for a team sharing platform, like MS teams or slack, but for individual chatting with people, or even group organising, it seems like "meet in the middle" would be the default thing to do socially.
If I came across someone who insisted that I use their means of messaging, and refused any compromise, I'd find that person pretty odd, and definitely a waste of time.
So far as encryption goes. I'm not dealing drugs, or enganging in terrorism, and the CIA is spying on pretty much all internet activity (Hi CIA! allah Akbar lol!), so personally I don't see any function to encrypted messenging.
For business, something like BBM is probably a more experienced security outfit, but for business secrecy at the highest level of profits and competition, I might understand encryption.
If I was a drug dealer, lol, WhatsApp apparently was unable to be cracked by the CIA without installing spyware via a Trojan (ie they couldn't crack the encryption itself). If the CIA can't get to it, it's probably pretty good, a fair bit better than 'shooting lasers' (and a Trojan spyware would get to signal just the same way, and it did, according to the WikiLeaks documents).
But honestly if business security was a big deal to me, I'd probably use a blackdroid phone. Most rated security in android devices, as I understand it, period.
For "liberals" or whatever you mentioned in the first place, I'm not sure I understand the function. Your GPS is tracked, your browsing sessions, your purchases tracked, the google ecosystem tracks you, the CIA watches everything you type. In fact google services and devices are probably the least private course you can take, in terms of hiding from "big brother", given the whole platform is designed for pitching advertising and tracking user metrics - and it probably does so on many levels of which people are publically unaware.
If you want to avoid big brother, I'd afraid the only viable way would be to make a secondary internet via the darkweb or something, and use end to end encryption and anonymous everything without ever using any login based services. I am not sure that level of paramilitary dedication to privacy exists as a consumer platform afaik! Having private encrypted messaging seems a little like putting a twig leaf over your junk when your standing in the street fully nude. Ie, I can't see it having very much impact on security or privacy in and off itself.
Indeed the very useage of an app like signal focused on privacy, and the sending of encrypted data probably auto flags you for some potential terrorist database.
I'm kind of with you on the privacy creep being a concerning issue. But without actually abandoning traditional forms of media and communication entirely, or constructing an alternative from the ground up, I do see many practical solutions.
Certainly if you were to take such a route, access to apps and services would have to go riiight on the bottom of the list, given each such thing is a means of compiling data, and involves a unique identifier beyond the one your phone, as a network object, already provides (or your vpn if you use that, which aren't impenetrable either). There's just no way to keep using all these things, and plug all the holes.
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