Some people in here seems to think MMS is obsolete.
It is infact a fast growing market.

http://www.comverse.com/data/uploads...S%20Growth.pdf

Other sources cite an annual growth of 9% for MMS vs 3% for SMS. These are worldwide numbers. I also saw one souce saying that MMS revenue for 2009 would pass SMS revenue for 2004, so while SMS is clearly much bigger, MMS is still a big economical factor. Older sources, 2008, say that MMS will keep a rapid growth until 2013.

I do not believe "won't buy the N900 if there's no portrait mode" is quite as important an economical driver for Nokia. Clearly both MMS and portrait mode will emerge. The first missing feature means Maemo phones do not support a GIANT market that is important to those who Nokia wants to partner with, the second missing feature means Maemo is only usable on QWERTY-enabled slide phones. Neither is acceptable for Nokia, which again underlines that the Maemo team must have been cutting corners. I believe (economically unfounded, based on media and opinions) the N97 was a disaster product for Nokia, and that this led to a hasty N900 announcement, and the N97 Mini which arrived so soon and is so much like the N97 in features...

With all this marketing focus on the N900, it is about to become a disaster product too... People do NOT think they're buying a "mobile computer with added phone functionality". So there's a lot of expectations that haven't been met yet and needs to be.

I don't believe Nokia is sitting on their thumbs. I believe they're not confident in the N900 as a mass market phone. We WILL have firmware updated in Q1, and it won't be the last update.

Other sources cite an annual growth of 9% for MMS vs 3% for SMS. These are worldwide numbers


lol

i reakon last year that skype(on mobile)/IM/email(on phone)/voip/social networking sites on phone was perhaps up worldwide by 10000%- mms and sms is the old tech- u have to look at both sides of the coin .

because one goes up doesnt mean the alternative is going down- its about growth- and messaging over ip stuff is where its headed.

off course sms and mms is so big allready that it will take time for it to be replaced- but certainly in the western world it will be changing up.

western young users want to do what they do on there pc's on the move- nokias stance is about allways online stuff,allways connected,chatting instantly. that was there stance for not including the mms in the first place and fair play to em.

I dream that everyone would have a unlimited dataplan and a smartphone (not iphone..) so we can all make free phones calls (ect) WORLWIDE.

I'm always impressed when I see someone with a 3310.

You have that right. However, that's not where the money are NOW. The N900 is a 2009-2010 phone. In which time frame MMS and SMS generates much more revenue than GPRS.

Which means that cellular data is still in the hype phase while SMS/MMS is actually in use in every home.

SMS deffo... but MMS...

MMS (in the UK at least) has never caught on, it was something that the networks always charged too much for when it should have been maturing and even now is still extortionately priced. The only reason i've used it within the last year was to test it out when rolled out on o2 for the iphone and even that was a quick 'uh, it works' and went straight back to emailing photographs or sharing them online.

In-fact, even media portrayal of MMS has it narrowed down to a stereotype of chavs in Northern England.

you may not but if you have 20 or more people a day sending u an mms. the lack of said feature can really work your nerves.

blobster is right, its not really ever been a big deal in uk- and its extortionality priced.. the majority of us email, or upload to a socil netwoirk site or a pic site

its nice in the US to have mms . another thing i would want to mention is that the n95's speakers were wayy better than the n900s . you think they'd continue the legacy of the great hardware speakerwise. but i also noticed that a certain movie or app can go louder than just listening to music you transferred to your n900 , does this mean the n900's audio level isnt at its full capacity? would it be able to be fixed / turned up or something with a 3rd party app or firmware update?

There is a lot of dependant architecture and software stack before MMS can be implimented. MMS is a technical hack hence why some people are saying it should die.

Personally I don't use it & haven't done for years even with a phone that supported it but no objection to others having it. Why do most people that use it do so? Maybe the inclusion in operator tariff, maybe lack of data support in networks for sensible cost. I suspect most people want to just send a snapshot & don't care how it gets there.

Even with the relevant hardware 3G video calls never appear to have taken off. Hoever similar functionality to/from desktop IM would be very interesting!