I've been a Windows Mobile user from the start. Just two months ago, I was still using my good old realiable HTC HD2 with a self-made WM 6.5.3 Professional ROM with all I would ever need on it.
However, since MS announced they would stop WM6 and announced WP7, and even though it was just a project, then a half-finished product, then a very incomplete OS (it didn't even have copy and paste not Office when it was first released), most software editors immediately dropped Windows Mobile, sometime in the middle of incurring development (such as the awaited Adobe Flash plugin for Opera Mobile, etc.)
But even then, I've been going on with Windows Mobile, for two reasons : 1) as I said, it did all I was needing as my mobile office, and 2) I could do all I wanted with it : registry editing, full customization, self-made CABs, scripting with MortScript allowing to program almost any task with a simple text file, etc. Using it under HTC Sense 2.5 + Co0kie Home Tab 2 made it the most advanced, handy and pleasant all purpose OS in the world.
But software editors had really decided to kill Windows Mobile. Twitter and Facebook (though I'm not using the latter, but still) changed their login process so the existing apps couldn't work (you could still save your login information for Twitter if you knew where to find them), auto located weather information from Accuweather started to stop working (we could earn another year by modifying the registry, then they changed something again), Skype was threatening not to work anymore...
So though 95% was still up and running and the HD2 was virtually indesctructible, you would become more and more isolated. In additon, the phone was limited to 3G, so of course, even the tehnology was ageing.
Then after a very unconvincing WP7, then 8, then 8.1, WM10 finally started to look like something. At least it was possible to use transparent tiles so you could have a start screen looking like somehting better than a colorblind Lego set, the OS was finally able to manage an SD card at last (though it could already from WP 8.1 - I can't believe it had regressed so much from my first HP iPaq using both a mini and and full size SD cards and everyone seemed to have felt OK with this !), and the "universal" apps promised to offer more choice in software, with cross-compatibility with desktop and tablet Windows 10.
So I felt I could finally take the plunge and replace the good old faithful HD2...
For now I feel highly frustrated with not being able to access the registry and system folders, (just to be able to sort the "all apps" list in subfolder like on desktop Win10, to start with) but I'll install the SDKs and try to do what's possible. The problem with being forced to install apps without being able to fix them like I was used to with Windows Mobile 6 is you have to live with unfinished or missing features and bugs. I used to correct problems with registry keys and to modify DLLs and scripts with a variety of tools : unsigning, uncompiling, modifying, signing back, rebuilding CABs, correcting translations or errors in SQL Lite tables, and of course enhancing graphics in resources files.
Now I have to wait for hypothetic fixes. Fortunately, and maybe it's thanks to the cross platform thingy that opens them to more users than just phone users, fixes come fast enough. From yesterday, Word is able to open RTF files, for instance, meaning most of my old notes became usable again (though they're opened in read only mode and need to be rewritten, but it's better than nothing). Defnitely a progress anyway since at least Word opens immediately : I can't believe how people are writing apps that take several minutes to launch ??? How the hell do they even do that ??? Are they crappy .NET VB apps ??? And they dare to sell that ?
So, a plan B ?
You know, when I read comments about an hypothetic Surface Phone, and the 950 and 950XL were launched... I thought "Nah. A Surface Phone will either never come out, or not before at least two years". The facts are : regular Windows needs faster, more current greedy processors. And where the dreaded and hated Windows 8 tiles menu felt totally out of place on a desktop PC (I've even upgraded my tablet to Windows 10 before having even used it just a mere second, and using it in "tablet mode" is totally out of the question), it totally makes sense on a (maybe not so, but still ^^) tiny phone screen.
Where it's totally nonsensical on a desktop (and even on a touchscreen tablet PC, though possibly less), it's rather a very pleasant start screen on a Windows Phone. Though honestly, I was very happy with the Windows Mobile 6.5 start screen, that could at least use subfolders (whose icons you could personalize at will - you just had to put a nice set of icons in a DLL. I made them with the help a friend who's a graphics designer). I could even MortScript to directly open selected favorite folders from the Sense home screen ! As a result, I had put all my documents, programs, install, etc. folders directly in the Start menu. The last floor launched the file explorer.
Just try to get this with Windows Phone and come back.
Though maybe pinning a subfolder to the home screen could be done from Total Commander or similar tool, I didn't try yet. Fortunately, such tools exist... It's the only one (with Root Explorer probably, but I haven't rooted the 950 yet) allowing to display the file extensions. How the hell could anybody live without seeing the damn file extensions ??????
Hey, another feature missing : you apparently can't associate an app to a file type. Having donwloaded like crazy (seriously, the so called Windows Phone app gap looks like an urban legend to me : I could find almost anything : OBD II readers, dB meters, ssh terminals, even an AutoCad reader and a Team Viewer client, so, seriously, app gap ??? What do Android and iOS have more ? 1000 variants each of the same app ? Who cares ???) , I have sometime 1 1/2 page of apps to chose from when clicking on some files...
If I could access to the registry, it would have been done in a snap.
Well... So, plan B ?
Then answer is easy. THIS is plan B. I've kept my HD2 for years, I'll keep the Lumia for years. Seriously, who can throw money through the windows and change phone every month ? What for anyway ???
I'll just be keeping on using it until it can't connect to anything anymore because the whole world would have changed around. And meanwhile, I'll be happily enjoying what I have, with all that will be working on it. Question easily answered, then.
When it will become almost unusable, then I'll get a new flagship and keep it for years in turn. And the 950 will join the HD2 (HD2s, actually, as I've bought several used and cheap ones to try different ROMs and different OSes - so I know Android is dull and unattractive) in my museum of (few : I've been using pocket PCs for over a decade and had only 4 of them, the 950 included) beloved and trusty phones.
By the time the Lumia becomes obsolete, what choice will there be ? Honestly, I doubt there won't be any evolution of Windows Mobile.
It has always been there since 2002. Back then it had found its customers base, pofessional users. Then Apple came to try and mimic Windows CE/Mobile and aimed at home users. With $1,000 phones, and the worst is it worked ! But they were mostly toys that could phone. What do most iPhone users do ? Lose their lives on Facebook ? You won't ever see me there, so I don't care. Of course they opened a brand new market. Apparently, we're living a crisis, but people have still money to throw in new iPhones twice a year... Well, it's still a mystery to me.
Anyway, Microsoft thought they could drop their trusty and faithful professional base and mimic Apple... They have partly succeeded, but this treason has been their worse decision. However, Windows Mobile 10 should be able to drag some of them back, because of its qualities. That's the reason I won't be using anything else anyway. I'll stay with an old phone doing what I need rather than going elsewhere. If MS would understand this, they would always keep a steady and reliable base of users.
Then the other aspects of the OS should be enough to drag some of the consumer users. After all the OS qualities are obvious. It's intuitive and you always find what you're looking for in the right place. Just this should make all the difference, provided people would just dare trying. I'm selling computers, tablets and phones, absolutely not less than the previous years as I read everywhere (mostly because it's not my main activity), but exactly the same as before : companies always need to replace devices or to equip new recruits. Those so called drops in sales are compltely normal and actually sane : let's stop wasting, let's buy sturdy hardware and use it for a reasonable duration, let's replace it only when needed, and let's evolve software until it can't be anymore.
And about Windows Mobile 10, and Windows 10 on tablets, all I have to do is to show mine to sell one. They're perfectly convincing products, and I've always wondered why there hadn't been more sales in the past. Probably for marketing and advertising reasons, if you ask me.
So I'm not so pessimistic about WM10 future nor successors. It's actually a necessity, considering MS involvement into cross-platform OSes, and I think the decision to do so was good. I really doubt WM10 will disappear soon. It will evolve, yes, but not die. And if it does, then I'll use it as long as I can, as I always did. Maybe I'll even die first, in the end.
It would take a true revolution to get anything better anyway. Something nobody can imagine yet... HTC had been thinking about developping their own OS, but considering how most of the Sense add-ons were bugged (I know, I've fixed lots of them ^^) and hastily finished, and their current financial problems, we shouldn't hope for a miracle from them. Google made a reasonable choice : they took an existing Debian Linux base and they embroided around. Neat, efficient, but so boring ! Same for Apple (quite the champion for buying other people's patents and piling them up). But where's the creativity ?
What's currently announced is more about hardware (with a bit of associated software, we could call drivers) : flexible screens, 3D gestures, faster processors... But not much innovation in OSes. MS is innovating much more (maybe not always for the best - the tiles menu on desktops is a perfect example) and is truly trying to offer new user interfaces. I don't think they'll just stop now. It would just make no sense. It's in the company's genes.
Anyway, what suddenly got WM10 some wordlwide attention was the rumor they would be back to target professional users and provide a real productivity OS. This is the only thing we were all waiting for and even if it doesn't meet a large consumer audience, at least professional should be back, and they'll necessarily drag other users in their path. I'm sure of it. I'm quite confident about it.
Professionals made Windows Mobile success since 2002, far before anybody had ever heard of smarthones (I'm pretty sure there was a big marketing lack there), and aiming at them again is vowed to give results. Dropping them was MS worst move. They thought they could overpower Apple on the toys market, but it was a ridiculous idea. They thought bing able to be better in this segment, and couldn't. They'd rather stick to what they did the best, and just add some more bells and whistles to drag some new users, instead of rushing to the kiddies and snobs market without being able to compete.
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