here you go bro.

I've not used MMS much, but occasionally have because it's the only way people with basic phones, or basic contracts (no cheap data for emails), can send and receive pictures and videos.

It's not 'must have' for me on the N900, but it'll be slightly annoying if someone sends me a picture and I can't view it, or if I want to quickly send a picture or video to someone else.

Even my girlfriend, who has a Nokia E63 which is more than capable of emails and web browsing, would not be able to receive an email from me or look at a picture on Flickr when out and about, or send me a picture she just took, because she doesn't have a phone-linked email account, finds the phone's browser too difficult to use, and wouldn't have a clue how to upload a fresh photo (come to think of it, neither would I!). But we've send and received MMS photos and videos easily.

I suspect it comes down mainly to user interface. Right now, MMS is really easy to use and understand. It's just like a text. Bluetooth is similar when you can use it

All the other options: email, Flickr uploads, sending some va text with a HTTP link, even IMs, they are *much* harder to use on most phones, and sometimes expensive too. Emails work on many phones now, but you often have to pay for "push" service, and you still have to set up an email account, work out how to use it in the phone etc. and handling pictures in emails may still not be as straightforward as MMS user interfaces. And it's amazing how many people don't have email accounts at all, even with their regular computer.

The N900 presumably makes great improvements to the user interface for other ways to send and receive pictures etc. But that doesn't help the person at the other end.

Did know body see what went on with the iphone and MMS?!? LIke you Nokia. Why MMS ? It is easy, it is fast, and it is a standard feature on just about every phone out there. Every phone I have ever had has MMS. I shoot pics off from the golf coarse or beach all the time.If the N900 is suppose to be the biggest, baddest new phone out there?! Lets not leave out features. It would be like Buying a FARRARI, and then finding out it only goes 60mph/100kph. Lets move on to getting Nokia to listen to its customers.

Here some more details about how MMS works.

Get your facts straight. The N900 is not marketed as phone. Also, not every phone you ever had has MMS because MMS was rolled out for the first time in 2002. I sure hope for you the first time you owned and/or used a phone was before 2002.

The name of the brand you meant is Ferrari. Some cars which drive not even 100 kmph drive perfectly well, for example in cities. In most countries you're not allowed to drive faster than 100 kmph. Car analogies suck though, and your analogy would be better if you'd have said your hypothetic car has only GPRS instead of FM.

Sometimes less is more. Sometimes more means more expensive, later product release. If you include more, chances become it becomes lot of mediocre instead of lot of top notch. Because you have to spread your attention to various features. This is explained earlier. Including MMS would have delayed the product.

The reason all Nokia phones nowadays have MMS is because the OS (Symbian) has this support included from the start while Maemo has not. This is because Maemo is new in the GSM/GPRS market. iPhoneOS had the very same problem.

You're free to join the Brainstorm entry on this issue, so you can contribute to solutions.

Not every basic phone has MMS. I have 2 year old basic Nokia model as a personal phone and it doesn't have MMS.

I use mms all the time even though I have email and pixelpipe configured on my handset.

There's absolutely no alternative for it yet imho:
Take nice snap and choose send
Select recipient, add a txt note and hit go
Recipient's handset immediately goes BUZZ BUZZ TWANG
Recipient admires your holiday snap on their handset!

Easy!

What I find *very* interesting here is that years ago, when the iPhone was introduced without MMS, the whole planet made fun of the sect, of how they were completely cought in Jobs' Reality Distortion Field, making up nonsensical justifications like "Email is more advanced than MMS" or "I never received an MMS before, so others mustn't have it, either". (The best one was: "Mr. Jobs wants people to have exactly one way of doing a certain task. Everything else is confusing. The way to sync is iTunes. The way to share pictures is email. That's the beauty of Apple. You needn't think of what to do.")

It was fun then.

I'd never have expected to read exaclty the same words (beefed up with the "sharing on flickr" excuse) here in this forum.

Been following that. I seriously do not think that you quite get my question.

I'm not asking what's forthcoming, I'm following that thread already.

I'm asking about what will happen once a person sends a MMS to an already released N900 that some people already have in their hands right now. Not a solution that's coming down the line. Right now.

If you have a N900, PM me. I'll send you a MMS. Let me know what happens. That's my question.

sorry i do not have n900
after asking the same as your question in the community i have had no answer so far. i know on tmobile usa you can actually put the number like say 5555555555@tmomail.net and send as an email and on the regular phone that will come up as a mms i have asked that too but have not had any answer on that either.
i do remember that your question of what happens when some one else sends you a mms? had been asked before but there was no concrete answer on that either.
hope fully one of those 300 who have a loaner can help us.
or when i receive mine i will PM you can we can check

I also hear that 'people in their 40ish' don't drive cars - they ride dinosaurs like in the good ol' days.