Insider previews seem to indicate that Microsoft is still investing in making Windows 10 a strong platform on every device including mobile, and I'm very interested to see what this year's development starts to bring...
(Happy Lumia 950 user.)
Sales are falling off of a cliff (declining 50% YoY). Developers are not building (or updating) apps for these devices. No matter what brand name they use, it isn't clear that anything is going to change these facts. Which should concern you if you are a happy user.
The app situation doesn't really concern me as a happy user, and I realize I'm in a bit of a minority opinion there. First of all, there is not a single "killer app" I feel I need and/or am missing out on. Mobile websites are largely reliable for most of the "app" things people need, and most of the major apps exist. Sure, some of these aren't seeing the updates they should be, and it does amuse me that Windows 10 Mobile is the last bastion of fave stars in an official Twitter app, but the UWP should help straighten out a lot of that sooner or later [1]. People are using the apps on Windows 10 Surfaces, laptops, and desktops, and devs should soon get better at realizing that getting a mobile app "for free" from the UWP is a good idea.
[1] I assume Twitter, as the continued example, hasn't unified its Windows apps yet because some of the things like the People app integration haven't yet entirely made their way back into the larger UWP ecosystem. Hopefully that happens sooner rather than later. (As a WP fan, I want the social integration for People working on my Surface again.)
Unless they can do something remarkable and turn around the trajectory, your device will go the way of the Zune.
You said I should be concerned about apps, but I'm not concerned about apps because developers unlike myself that don't care about Windows phones still likely care about PC users, Xbox users, and eventually HoloLens users, et al.
If I have concerns it would be with hardware, but the 950 is still new and exciting and I likely have a few years before I start to worry about replacing it, if history repeats itself similarly to my 920.
As for "morale disaster", the problem with percentage statistics (as with most statistics) is that it is a kind of lie. Sure, 1% (or more accurately 2-3%) of the smart phone market sounds small and scary, but keep in mind that 1% is still millions of devices, presumably used by millions of people. I don't know about you, but as an engineer I would be ecstatic to know my product was used by millions of people (many daily, many happy) I would certainly still feel that way even knowing that product was in a distant third place. It's a good old fashioned scrappy underdog story, with a chance to make millions of people happy, sign me up.
As for the Zune, the "ancient Microsoft adage" is "Top 3 or Bust". Zune never quite hit the Top 3 in what became clear was a dying product category, so bust. Phone is in the Top 3, and barring some weird dark horse appearing from nowhere or a hard Android fork accidentally splitting the market (which seems perhaps more likely), it's likely to remain in the Top 3.
I do hope they do something remarkable (and I'm kind of betting they will) to turn around sales on the 950 or bring in sales to new, potentially exotic hardware, but unlike you I don't think that Windows phones go by way of the Zune even if they fumble the ball a bit and don't do something truly remarkable in the near term.
How about how it didn't have copy/paste functionality for about a year- I believe they stole this feature from the first iPhone.
Then their apps used advanced controls like the carousel/panorama but the plebes had to wait?
Then they wouldn't tell even the people who'd paid for beta access what apps would ship, so if you developed one that was similar by coincidence, boy were you screwed.
Remember how they didn't bother to encrypt anything so pirating was as easy as rolling off a log?
Then remember when their upgrade story was RSN for months because they couldn't get the carriers to allow them to upgrade it like they wanted?
Then ultimately, you can GFY if you want to upgrade because they didn't bother with backwards compatibility on the phones as they upgraded the OS' major versions.
OMG- I almost forgot the hw buttons that you couldn't disable so if, in the middle of a game, your thumb accidentally brushed up against it, you were dumped from that app. In theory you could have saved your game state for later, but come on.
Ah-- good times.
The article acknowledges that as well. The headline could have been "Windows Phone is dead; Long live Windows 10 Mobile."
But of course the obvious truth of the matter is that Windows 10 is struggling on phones as well. It seemed to be a half-baked weakly-tested operating system when the 950 arrived, and seems to be evolving and fixing problems quite slowly since.
As a 950 user and a fan of the operating system in general, I hope the Surface Phone (or whatever it ends up being—the full Windows 10 computer I can fit in my pocket) ends up being quite good. More importantly, I hope the OS team steps up their game and invests seriously in quality control. Today, the 950 is a decent device, but it's not something that is going to ever win converts to the platform outside of the rare person who thinks Continuum is the coolest thing in town.
This is the most sad part of the Windows Phone, the consumers constantly hoping for better times to arrive. Spoiler alert : if they didn't manage to do it in the last 5 years ...
Significantly, I've looked at iOS and Android devices during the same time and saw no appeal. Android seems about the same as it was when I stopped using it, even though it's been through several major updates.
So yes, I do hope they improve Windows 10 mobile, and dramatically so. But I've only had this particular device for a couple months. For me personally, this is the first time I feel partly disappointed with a Windows phone. So I feel it is reasonable to be cautiously optimistic that they can improve matters and restore my happiness with the platform.
Your correction is like saying "don't call it iOS, call it iOS 9.3.1!!!" or "It isn't Android anymore, it is Lollipop!"
Sure, the latest incarnation is Windows 10 mobile, but realistically it is going to be called Windows Phone as an ecosystem because versions come and go, a platform name is forever.
Microsoft MIGHT be able to convince people to call it "Windows Mobile" (instead of "Windows Phone") but they have a lot of marketing to do.
They had a great shot. After seeing so many bugs in Lollipop, and really slow updates coming in from Google, I considered MS ecosystem. First time in 7 years of being Linux on desktop/server + Android for phone.
Finally, I switched to Apple products instead. Got a Mac and developing stuff for iOS now.
I better not get a forced invitation to update my Android phone to Windows 10.