My current plan gives me 3000 free SMS/MMS within my provider (a *lot* of my friends and relatives are on the same carrier) and ~0.06€ per SMS and ~0.15€ per MMS to everyone else, so it's not really expensive for me ;-)

*raises hand*




*stops beating the dead horse and goes back to implementing MMS*

No, but then I didn't call the numbers minor.

As an indication of popularity the numbers place MMS in stark contrast with SMS, with the latter obviously used by the world and it's dog, whereas the former is not even in the same league where popularity is concerned, and obviously isn't what many would consider a "vital" feature (nice to have, but not vital).

The number of people that use MMS, when taken as a percentage of the total messaging population (and based on these numbers) could, however, be considered "relatively minor". Which is basically what I said in my post.

AT&T combined SMS and MMS. Data otherwise would be internet/e-mail. Same with Suncom, but I'm not sure about T-Mobile.

Lately, I've switched to textPlus by GOGII on my iPhone (yep, I'm one of them users) or using DialCentral and Google Voice for SMS. Sooner than later, I'll be able to drop the $5.00 for 200 SMS/MMS per month fee. And if there was a N900 tablet, I'd drop data too... I rarely use data while not around either the office or home wifi. I'm not a "typical" user either.

That was a continuation of the prior conversation that may/may not have included you. It should be taken as a continuation only, not directed towards you.

I'm an American... that receives a lot of SMS messages from clients in Europe and Asia. If they could, they'd send me photos... but they send mostly up to Flickr or Zooomr now per my request.

People are complaining about a lot of missing features. And Nokia is knocking those down one by one - hopefully by what's more important as opposed to most disputed. In that case, the Maps, and other portions of Maemo 5 are being worked on first. I just would love to see a full featured phone with all features before Maemo 6 comes out and per past experience, updates will never happen for Maemo 5 unless the community supplies it - which, ain't a half-bad thing either.

Well, having the internet on your phone is great and all, but if you're in an area that's only EDGE, you're either going to use phone or internet - not both as it would be if it were 3G or higher.

But in those times, you can still receive MMS and SMS - at least I can on my current phone. So... having a good internet plan is only as good as your coverage and the device. And there are times when you'll not have full access to what a personal computer with a phone can do. Then what?

I actually am almost nearby wifi hotspots per day. Only in my car am I not around any. And even then, people will send me a SMS or MMS - I receive way more than I send.

In the US, it's a bit different... a lot less concentrated - and quite frankly, the networks majorly suck. In fact, up until recently, 3G was a pipe dream around here for even AT&T. Now, T-Mobile is a relative newcomer in this area, so I've yet to experience their coverage.

Simply put... this is a very small item among others that should have been included. It's "coming", there's a huge portion of the legwork being done by one member here - Frals I think is the name - so it's possible. And besides, what's important to you isn't always important to others; vice versa.

My constant rants about video calls via Skype is marginally important to anybody here... but lord. I soooo want it before Apple or Motorola does it... and it would be very nice to have it on the N900.

That would change my mind, instantly. Take care, the "out of sync" was not directed to you.

These are the votes of the Norwegian jury, per 31.12.2008:

Norway, New Years Eve 2008->2009.
Numbers for Telenor, biggest cell phone operator:
SMS's sent: 30 million.
MMS's sent: 2 million.

That's up from previous years:
2007: 1.53 millions
2006: 0.58 millions

Numbers for Netcom, 2nd biggest cell phone operator, same night:
SMS's sent: 14.2 million.
MMS's sent: 665,000.
The source reports an increase of 515,000 from the year before.

The numbers aren't directly comparable, since Netcom and Telenor define the "new years eve" time span differently.

Number of people living in Norway: 4.5 million including Grandmas, Common Joes and Children. So it was sent at least one MMS per two cell phones in Norway - in one single night.

According to those numbers, although a year old and localized to one of the most tech-hungry markets in the world after Japan, says MMS is a growing trend, not a declining one.

Whatever we can say,

Nokia already has MMS picture function in their s60 devices, how frukin' hard is it for them to add the function to the N900 and Maemo5?

A lot of bullshat arguing and lost sales would not be happening to have the VERY simple function out of the box.

Nokia shoots themselves in the foot on a regular basis. Still love my N900, but not as a phone.

They'd have to design a new UI that fits in with Maemo5 (the S60 UI and related code would be pretty unusable), develop from scratch MMS integration with the rest of the Maemo system (ie. Contacts, Phone, Camera, Conversations etc.), thoroughly test it/certify it across multiple networks, and finally document it.

This all takes time and it should be obvious that the N900 barely made it to market in a usable state as it was, and there are still N900 devices out there that are rebooting repeatedly for no good reason, with battery lifetimes under 6 hours and can't dial numbers containing a #.

Which are issues that should be fixed as soon as possible. MMS support and Somewhat Implemented Portrait Mode is "new functionality" which should be prioritized below bugs and performance issues, I think we all would/should agree.

A lot of people seem to be complaning that mms is pointless, so here is why I find it useful:
1) Not everyone has email on their phone, but almost everyone has mms.
2) You can send it directly to the phone instead of going through log-ins
3) It's much faster
4) Most sms plans have mms included, so its basically free
5) No data plan/wifi required

The only big question I have is why it wasn't put in. Im started to think that mms is more complicated than we think. if it's such a basic feature, why wouldn't Apple or Nokia put it in? They aren't stupid, and obviously couldn't have forgot about it so there must be a reason...maybe there are some drawbacks for having it...any ideas?

That's basically right. MMS is surprisingly complicated and difficult to implement.

- It doesn't run over SMS.
- It doesn't run over your regular data connection either.
- It needs the ability to open two simultanous data connections, if you want you N900's normal data to continue working.
- It causes a clash of IP network addresses when both data connections are active.
- It needs special settings for each operator.
- Just like regular GPRS data sometimes needs you to enter special settings on the N900 because the defaults don't always work out of the box and the operators don't have specific N900 support yet, only MMS is even less likely to work out of the box and the right settings are harder to find and even harder to test.
- When operators do support the N900, like other phones it'll be be by sending service command SMS to update the phone settings, so handling of those will be needed.
- That means service command UI too.
- There's more than one way to recieve MMSs, depending on the operator.
- You need a special MMS browser to display them, because they have features like animation, sound, video and scrolling text sequencing, not just showing a static picture.
- Someone has to figure out how to fit that into Conversations sensibly. Thumbnails?

Unfortunately almost every part seems likely to have to be rewritten for Maemo compared with Symbian, although a few bits and pieces might be usable, and much of it would make handy reference code

Excactly opposite thing here in Russia. It costs next to nothing to send a small amount of data via EDGE/3G and MMS are quite expensive and there is *NO* flat rate (nor there is one for SMS).