I've given up getting an N9, though I unfortunately can't give up obsessing over it. I'll be getting a Samsung Galaxy S II, (Samsung Stratosphere apparently on Verizon) and probably running Cyanogen. I'll at least be waiting for the next Meego device, whoever might make it, might be around before 2 years.

I justified a carrier switch, paying the unsubsidized price, getting little to no real support - both first party and third party, and the fact that most of the hardware in this phone is unremarkable. I can't justify getting it with a release date that I don't know, imported because its not otherwise coming to the US, or heck even the UK or Germany now and I'm sure that's just the start of disappointment. No other device from no other manufacturer are you so worried "will it be supported?" That's not a question you should have to ask. Period.

The N950 developer program ended up giving most of those who had really wanted the original N9, with the keyboard, what they had been looking for. The rest of us are SOL. One last hurrah for Maemo, for the few who still care, not that there were many who cared in the first place. The N900 is far past its peak and you still have to explain to everyone what it is and why it means something.

It doesn't take a great device to claim the market, a hardware and software upgrade to the N900 would've been able to do that if that was true. It would at least have more than just a cult following if that was it. It takes a decent device and a lot of marketing, and then you finally grow into something that people can't move away from, part of their lives.

The Galaxy S II is a device, and a good one. The N9, however, is a dream. A dream I won't be living, and that probably wouldn't measure up to what I think of it anyway.

And just like the fabled "Year of the Linux Desktop" it isn't whether it has become great or not, its the fact the vast majority of people have no reason to care.