Where exactly do you think those high end smartphone markets are? Where do you think Nokia ruled with the N95 and had more than 50% of global smartphone market share? It was not the US. By todays standard, what is a "smartphone market" anyway, what is a smartphone?.

The N9 is going to markets where people change phones often (one new unit in less that 18 months), markets where people have more than one phone operational on average (typically 1.3-1.5 phone per person), markets where people in general are early adopters. It is going to free markets where operators have little to say in the matter and where people don't think twice about purchasing unlocked phones (they may still buy phones from operators, even including a plan of some kind, but that's a different subject altogether)

The N9 is going to specific European countries and to Asia including China and some other places. WP is going to more operator-controlled places like Germany and UK - and in particular the US. WP will eventually take over, but in the mean time the N9 will rock the market for a year or two and will become a classic while doing so. Harmattan may or may not disappear, but swipe is here to stay for sure, you will be surprised.

Because that's what the trends are showing?

Interesting read...
http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/Snowball
Particularly the PDF that's linked.

Shame Nokia will no longer have something like this on their roadmaps.
As the last or 2nd last transitional device, in the shift from maemo to pure meego + intel silicon.

and your the biggest joke on TMO ever

I don't know what trends you are referring to regarding what you quoted, so I can't really answer. I believe more in making things happen than following some trend.

But consider Motorola (mobile). A US company that sells phones for the US market. It is zero outside the US, and the main reason for that is banality itself. They never learned how to translate their menu systems to other languages in a way that didn't make you laugh or scratch your head. Consequently they have no international experience business wise regarding end user experience, and this was the reason they went down. The phones themselves, good quality devices that can compete with the best. In the last 3-4 months they are getting some traction outside the US/UK, thanks to Android/Google, but nothing to write home about, too little - too late. Now, with the Google purchase of Motorola, this scares the living sh*t out of Samsung, SE, HTC and LG. From one day to the next, Motorola has gone from being a dead end domestic supplier with no knowledge of the world, to become an international heavy weight regarding international business know how. Obviously Motorola will sky rocket on the charts and eat large chunks out of the others, not because they make better devices than before, but because they finally have the one vital thing they have lacked before - international know how (tons of cash doesn't harm either).

The point is, technology, trends, whatever has nothing to do with this, it is a pure business opportunity that Google just had to have, and they paid whatever it took to get. Motorola + Google is dynamite.

Nokia + Microsoft is similar but different in many ways. They are creating an ecosystem, an open ecosystem for everyone to participate any way they chose, but with some basic premises at the bottom. This is also dynamite, and much more far reaching than Google+Motorola. That you people cannot see this, is quite funny actually. They may still fail, but so far, every day has been one day closer to success.

The N9 will be successful because it is too cool to miss; superb design - beautiful, superb choice of materials, dead simple UI - yet more powerful and versatile than anything. It will be sold in markets with much higher than average turn around (markets where the iPhone is out of fashion and the Galaxys already are passè or considered over-geeky toys). The N9 is marketed as the best out of the box experience ever (best UI, best camera, best browser, best navigation, best twitter-facebook-whatever, best music), and it's all true, dead true. And as I said, swipe will live on, the N9 is not the end (it may be the end for open source zealots though).

follish blindness in this forum about mego and android thing is: we will all loose in the end except those who prefer closed platforms like WP and Iphone.

funny is how naive android people are atm. and making fun of Nokia Meego destruction.

as soon as some thirdparty help make coool apps/games for WP people will move to wp7. and then you all realise we are all in the same boat. were big companys is more important than what we want...

I just say wait and see end of 2012 will change...

whatever happens N9 will be my last device from Nokia for me. and when samsung or SE release an android with NFC i will buy that dying platform too.

I'm not really interested in swipe on low-end Nokia OS (s40).

Is it possible to get access to development apps on N9 i.e. apps not in OVI store as we currently access thru Extras etc?

"NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF CELL PHONES HAVE USERS EVER HAD TO PAY FOR THEIR SPECIFIC LANGUAGE"

I'll just leave this here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hyperbole

Forgive me, I didn't realise you were going on and on this whole time based on a ridiculous, hyperbolic, overstatement. That statement was meant to illustrate that the practice of charging for language packs on a cell phone is, relative to the number of cell phones sold throughout time is next to nonexistent. That's been my whole point this whole time. Honestly, I'm not even sure you've been reading what I've wrote. As I've said earlier, the likelihood of users having to pay for their specific language is next to zero. Your experience with languages in regard to cell phones is not representative of the average user and that's all I have to say on the subject. (you implied it was the norm in your anecdote about installing them for your friends or something along those lines.)

Hit a nerve? Lol I'm not the keyboard warrior defending others from the evils of being called r3tarded. (lol you remind me of handi man from in living color http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkQQGsOegv0) This is simply a fun way to pass the time while I'm at work. One thing's for sure, your sarcasm detector is broken, mate!

It should be possible by the time it's released. I don't think the repositories are open yet. However,I don't think they can be accessed using the stock application manager. There is a community application manager in the works.