Filed under: Apple, Social Software, iPhone
MMS finally arrives on the iPhone for AT&T customers
For American iPhone users, today is a pretty big day. AT&T customers should now have MMS (also commonly known as picture messaging) on their iPhones. Update your carrier settings by clicking on your phone in iTunes and going to "Check for Update." Then, to make sure MMS has been enabled for you, go to Settings -> Messages. You should see an option to turn MMS on. Now, whenever you're sending a text message, you'll see a camera icon you can tap to attach a photo.Other smartphone users have mocked the iPhone's lack of MMS, pointing out that the feature has been almost universally available for years, even on old flip phones. It's not as if the iPhone is making a big leap forward today: it's just catching up. This is probably less Apple's fault than AT&T's, though. International iPhone users have had MMS for a while now, and AT&T delayed rolling it out because the necessary infrastructure wasn't ready. This is a big win for iPhone users, but it's also a bitter reminder that AT&T is still their only choice of carrier in the US.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
DAJ said 2:16PM on 9-25-2009
Excuse my ignorance chaps, but "the necessary infrastructure wasn't ready". Does that mean that AT&T have never supported MMS for any phone?
Here in the UK we have had it for years on most phones, but only recently on the iPhone. Oddly I thought I missed it when i moved to an iPhone however since it was activated a few months ago I've only sent and received a few MMS's!!!
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Manny said 2:31PM on 9-25-2009
at&t has MMS on every other phone, but they delayed it since june. Its not excatly clear why.
But i hate how people can easily forget that apple didn't have this until June, but somehow people think its mostly AT&Ts fault.
Its 90% apple's fault for not having it until just this june, so iphone users complain for 2yrs about MMS, and at&t delays it for 2months and somehow at&t has more to blame than Apple? how is that even possible?
Butters said 3:59PM on 9-25-2009
The iPhone has ALWAYS had the ability to to send MMS. However AT&T advised Apple that their network would not be able to handled the increased MMS traffic if Apple implemented it on the iPhone, therefore Apple didn't produce a native app to allow MMS service.
Jailbroken iPhones have had homebrew MMS capability almost since day one and Swirly MMS, the first widely available MMS app, came not long after.
It was definitely AT&T that was behind the delay in having a native MMS app on the iPhone, not Apple, however Apple happily played along.
Hunts314 said 7:30PM on 9-25-2009
@ butters
you really think apple kept MMS out of the iPhone because of AT&T? Apple kept it out of all the other areas the iPhone is offered just because of AT&T? I don't think so. Apple didn't implement it until OS 3.0 for whatever reason (one we'll probably never be told). However I think its ludicrous to believe that apple held back the rest of the iPhone carriers from offering MMS just to appease AT&T.
EGOvoruhk said 1:14AM on 9-26-2009
@Butters
Did AT&T somehow have a hand in the delay in other countries too?
peegee said 2:28PM on 9-25-2009
Of course it was there. I have had WM phones on AT&T and have always been able to use MMS. Welcome to the club iPhone users
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Todd said 3:12PM on 9-25-2009
MMS is a weird animal. It's not a voice call and it's not pure data connection either. Really Roshambo's the network:
"...Sending an MMS message is different than making a voice call or even accessing data from the Internet. In those cases, the phone sends digital packets over the cell network to either the web — to call on a server, as is the case with data — or to a piece of equipment that will connect it to the circuit switched network in order to call a landline or cell phone. With MMS and SMS messages, the text or photo info is actually sent over the cell network to an AT&T data center.
Once there, a server validates and stores the message. Then it pushes out a notification to the recipient of the message, which contains the sender’s info and a URL to access the content on the server. When the recipient clicks to receive the image, it’s sent. The ability to store the content and wait a bit to push it out to recipients is one reason that texts and MMS can work in a disaster situation, when voice circuit networks are overloaded. Texts may arrive late, but they should get there. So unlike voice calls, there’s a heavy data center component to the MMS capability."
http://www.nowsms.com/howmmsworks.htm
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aycankaplan said 7:45AM on 9-28-2009
Once there, a server validates and stores the message. Then it pushes out a notification to the recipient of the message, which contains the sender’s info and a URL to access the content on the server. When the recipient clicks to receive the image, it’s sent.özel ders
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aycankaplan said 7:45AM on 9-28-2009
http://www.ozeldersakademisi.com
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aycankaplan said 7:45AM on 9-28-2009
Once there, a server validates and stores the message. Then it pushes out a notification to the recipient of the message, which contains the sender’s info and a URL to access the content on the server. When the recipient clicks to receive the image, it’s sent.
http://www.ozeldersakademisi.com
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