Submit Your Article
Reports are drifting in from random iPhone addicts that their multimedia messaging system (MMS) is working, an event that wasn’t supposed to happen until several days hence, September 25 to be exact. Somehow, somewhere, someone slipped up (maybe), and now many iPhone users have full functionality for the MMS on AT&T-carried iPhones.
Though it may sound somewhat like a small chocolate candy, MMS actually stands for Multimedia Messaging System, the basic gist being that you can easily send songs, videos, pics, and fancy flashing fonts with ease and joy. Chances are, you enjoyed the blessings of MMS last week when you took a picture of your kid from your (non-iPhone) phone and sent it to your mom.
MMS is nothing new, but the iPhone integration with MMS is new, which is not Apple’s fault: it’s AT&T’s. The iPhone’s major carrier wasn’t quite in sync with iPhone’s June rollout of OS 3.0, which supported MMS. AT&T probably enjoyed a few rounds through the ringer from Apple and iPhone users alike for that snafu.
Until now, iPhoners wanting to send a picture of their pet dog have to take a picture of their dog, save it, make an e-mail message, attach the picture of the dog on the e-mail, and then send it. Kind of a hassle, huh? MMS makes the whole process a lot simpler, faster, and smile-inducing. Basically, it’s like text-messaging pics, videos, and songs in a typical SMS-kind of a way. Simple. Fast. Easy.
AT&T, who bears the onus for the late release of the MMS may trying to clean pie off their face with an early release for some. The reason that MMS wouldn’t work is something called opt-out codes that were pandemically slapped on every iPhone account. The opt-out codes put the kibosh on MMS-capability. In order to reinstate MMS capability those opt-out codes have to be removed in a one-by-one fashion. Yeah. Somebody at AT&T is getting some serious overtime. That’s why they may be trying to go at it early.
Blogger Ash Kalib from Mediaite was one of the first to hail the entre of the great MMS, when he blogged on Saturday, “for me at least, it seems to just be working.” Within moments, fellow iPhone users joined in the jubilant chorus of similar reports.
September 25 was the great day when MMS was allegedly coming out. With the Christmas present already unwrapped, so to speak, that date may just be moot, but not for all iPhone users. Kalib recommends that “if you can’t wait for the 25th, or don’t trust AT&T to get there on time, give it a try. Your iPhone might just MMS too.”
