I don’t know about you, but I never really consider September to still be the Summer. But it is, until September 22, anyway. Why that matters is that AT&T promised iPhone users in the U.S. MMS capabilities by “late Summer.” So, technically AT&T, you have three weeks.
I shouldn’t have to remind everyone how utterly ridiculous it is that about three months now after much of the rest of the world got it, the U.S. still has no MMS capabilities for the iPhone. Reasons seem to vary for why exactly it is taking AT&T so long, but my favorite is the one where they have to manually remove MMS opt-out codes from each iPhone contract. Genius planning right there, if that’s true. And still, why exactly does that take three months?
The lawsuits are already starting to come out of the woodwork over the lack of MMS (and tethering) on AT&T. And if AT&T is not able to hit that September 22 date, expect a hell of a lot more. And, of course, more calls for Apple to break up with AT&T. The company bought itself a little bit of time by actually, for once, not having anything to do with a nightmare situation (the Google Voice fiasco). But at the end of the day, AT&T still badly needs to improve its execution.
While the service has been doing some upgrades to its services in particularly bad cities (San Francisco and New York), I think it’s all too easy to forget that we really shouldn’t be lauding them for that — it’s their job to provide us with service, and we’re paying them very well for that. They can complain all they want about being overwhelmed, but we all have contracts that state we pay them and they provide us with service. As I see it, only one side is living up to those contracts: Us.
While Netflix is dishing out unprompted refunds for little hiccups in their service, many of us have probably accumulated days of basically no service with AT&T. How many of those refund emails have you gotten from AT&T? Because I’ve seen none.
Apple is holding an event in one week to show off its new iPods. The event is said to be music-centric, but if we don’t hear a peep from Apple about MMS, I’m going to be pretty worried about the whole “end of Summer” promise. Actually, I’m already worried, it’s freaking September.
Update: And 12 hours later, AT&T responds: MMS will be available September 25. Yes, that’s a few days into Fall, but I hear Fall is the new Summer anyway.
o look, another anti-at&t mg article.
at&t has been the best and most supportive carrier apple could have had. they even subsidized the iphone 3gs upgrade when they didnt need to. They have the largest 3g network and expanded it just for the iphone.
MMS is a technical issue and if they cant fix it before summer, then whine all you want because noone cares.
This comment is better than most of the replies we get from AT&T PR, actually. More lively. You should consider a job there. You sound like a great future company man.
My only gripe is that by putting this article out now, instead of say Sept. 15th, there’s a slim chance AT&T might feel pressured into delivering, thus destroying all hope of a true lawsuitapalooza when summer ends.
MG probably believes that on the 9th, MMS will be turned on in conjunction with the Apple event on that day.
By posting early, he can still decry AT&T for having let it go on this long.
And don’t give me that “network can’t handle it” crap. MMS’s are capped at 300kb, no bigger than a typical attachment, probably smaller than many attachments.
AT&T could do more as we pay them more. But its progress it damn slow. Hope it first improves coverage and then keeps up the promise of MMS.
I Care too.
At&t sucks & we all need better options. MG just has a little louder voice than the rest of us.
I like the statement “mms is a technical issue”. Last time I checked it is 2009 and MMS is a basic/standard service for all carriers. It’s not even really a selling point anymore. I don’t own an iPhone but the lack of mms is just absurd!
AT&T would most likely turn it on but their networks can’t take it. Personally I like Verizon and have been with them for years before AT&T. However, why release a new feature if its going to break all the current offerings. NO ONE has had to deal with this increase in data across wireless networks. iPhone users (including myself) use 10x as much data as other smart phone users. They want to make sure they can offer a good product before actually releasing it. NYT today – http://www.nyti...;ref=technology
Funny, I was just thinking about the lack of tethering this morning, and thinking that summer ends with Labor Day, which is the official end of summer in my book.
With this #SummerOfDeath, maybe the last to die is any hope that ATT will live up to its promises.
What do you mean, “lack of tethering”?
Can’t you just go to unlockit.co.nz and enable tethering RIGHT NOW on your iPhone?
That’s what I did 3 months ago…
I care.
Oh look its another internet user named @basementdad
hey genius: MMS is not a technical issue. Apple’s doing it with most other carriers covering the iPhone quite easily. It’s a basic feature, so if a basic feature is hard for AT&T, then I think we all have a problem.
and I agree with MG. look into a PR position at AT&T, you’d do great.
Hey @basementdad,
People do care about MMS. Whether we use it or not, we had MMS capabilities years ago. We had it with our most basic phones and no data plans. MMS is ancient technlogy, and, if AT&T can’t get it right, they do not deserve our money.
Apple, do us all a favor. Do not extend the exclusive AT&T contract. We are dying to jump ship.
“… then whine all you want because noone cares.”
That’s NO ONE moron.
And I care.
MMS is definitely NOT a “technical issue”.
its not a technical issue at all. Not when you can jailbreak, install ActivateMMS, and still run on ATT with full integrated iPhone MMS (not just some hack program either).
Summer has come and gone AT&T — nevermind the semantics of when “summer ends”.
http://dtb.me/g...-12-hours-left/
AT&T is in over their heads.
Awesome article! I love bashing AT&T because they really suck!
I think AT&T have simply got in over their head in this situation. Now here they are sitting between a sharp rock and a very hard place. They can’t go back on their word and what apple has promised, but they also seem unwilling (if not unable) to go ahead and allow these features.
In my humble and unprofessional opinion, it seems that they not realize that their network is unable to properly handle the amount of active iPhone users. I think they are working towards improving and fixing these situations, but its not good enough to keep throwing up smoke screens over and over. MMS might be here by Christmas, but I foresee it being postponed until early next year due to ‘unforeseen technical occurrences’ or other such PR nonsense.
I have nothing against AT&T.. heck I dont even own an Iphone, but I know enough about this to know they need to pull things together and up a notch.
We care! ATT better step up and deliver.
i’ll hold my hammer ’til the end (1st oct.) though.
Considering it was Apple senior vice president Scott Forstall who said, “later this summer,” AT&T doesn’t have to provide anything since they weren’t the ones who made the promise.
If we’re getting all “technical.”
As acting partners in a contractual obligation, pretty much whatever Apple says is in accordance with AT&T’s own word.
So, to be “technical,” what Apple says in terms of this relationship must go both ways. Otherwise you would have already heard a bunch of, “We never said that!” from AT&T.
Anyway, it’s official policy. You can call AppleCare and AT&T and get the same response.
AT&T must think they can drag their feet for a reason. Not sure what it is but not providing something as simple and basic as mms for the iPhone is really suspect imho…
hey Arrington-
you getting mms on your… gasp… non-iphone?
I’ve got an Android on ATT (ssh!). I get mms, too.
AT&T might be at the point where they cannot provide adequate bandwidth for 3G users, but are also making a conscious decision to not completely build out their network. They don’t want to be sitting on a bunch of excess capacity once half the current iPhone users leave them for other carriers once the exclusivity is gone. And that might be the only thing that actually saves the integrity of their network.
as much as people threaten and fantasize about leaving att – most won’t. It’s just too much effort. Changing carriers is something that most people hate doing, much like going to the dentist. So my bet is that most current att iphone customers will stay put, though most future iphone users will sign up with verizon etc. The interesting thing will be to see how the other networks handle the traffic, especially if there is a mass defection like you mentioned. The data from iphone users is crushing and probably would have brought down any network. Definitely not an excuse – should have been anticipated and att should have been proactive.
This is why it was such a horrible business decision for AT&T not to extend the full subsidy for the 3GS to all the early adopter 3G users with average bills of $90 a month. I would have gladly extended my contract with them another 2 years at the fully subsidized price. As it is, tons of early adopters will have their 3G contracts expire right about the time Verizon (hopefully) starts offering the iPhone. AT&T had no obligation to offer that subsidy to us, but I think that shallow thinking is going to cost them a ton of business next June.
get a different phone if you don’t like it. why do you use a device that makes you whine and cry so much?
Because Steve Jobs made it…Steve Jobs…
I think it should come out soon. I am pretty sure that MMS is enabled by default in 3.1 beta 3 which will probably be the case in the actual 3.1 release. The fact that MMS is enabled by default means that AT&T will support MMS when Apple releases 3.1 so they must be somewhat close. I don’t know, it’s just an observation!
I think it’s probably in the carrier settings rather than the iPhone settings per se. I mean, here in Australia, my MMS functionality was automatically switched on with the upgrade to OS 3.0 and the accompanying upgrade to the carrier settings (optional). I didn’t have to do anything to turn it on.
My AT&T service in New York has been worse then ever the past 2 weeks. Its almost hardly usable. If they dont get this fixed by the time my contract runs up, I’m out of here.
Switching from a Sony Ericsson handset to an iPhone 3GS on the Rogers network in Canada this July got me:
- incredibly fast and reliable tethering
- buggy and slow MMS which no one uses anyways
- 20% dropped calls, which never happened with my previous handset.
So maybe not all these woes are solely AT&Ts fault. I’m just sayigng…
In an ideal world, on September 9th Apple will release a few things:
-iTunes 9
-iPod Touch 3G (w/ OS 3.1)
-iPhone OS 3.1
The iPhone OS 3.1 upgrade will coincide with iTunes 9 and will enable MMS and Tethering for all of us US-AT&T users.
And to add some slice of reality: iTunes 9 is going to be a REQUIRED upgrade if you want OS 3.1…because Apple just sucks like that sometimes. They have required iTunes upgrades for iPhone OS upgrades in the past and will continue to do so.
If this doesn’t happen, I don’t see AT&T enabling MMS on their own accord, without it coinciding with an Apple release. There HAS to be an OS update in order to enable MMS on the iPhone. We’ll never wake up one day with MMS enabled on our phones, it will have to be through software update.
“If this doesn’t happen, I don’t see AT&T enabling MMS on their own accord [by Sept. 22]“
For whatever reason 3G service doesn’t work on my 3GS or about ten other people I’ve spoken with in our city for about a week now. It works on other non iPhone phones but for us that pay the most….3G seems to not be working anymore.
The official word from AT&T is that its our phones. Really all of our phones suddenly have the same problem and its not network related and if we go to another city its just fine. Interesting glitch
Wait! … I’ve got MMS working just fine. No probs here at all. Why is everybody freaking out?? .. oh, wait. damned. I’m using an Android. Sorry.
“but I never really consider September to still be the Summer”
Come visit Texas. You’ll start to consider Halloween the end of Summer.
I don’t have an iPhone, but I do have AT&T. They are the only carrier with a signal at my house. I guess I can’t complain about them too much.
The problem in my view is that many people jumped on the iphone bandwagon because it was cool and now they are complaining about problems with it, this AT&T one being only one of the many.
All carriers are s… and all phones are as well. We are doomed.
Summer ends on 21st Sep. Although here in the south of Italy is still 33 degrees and it seems as it will last for many more weeks.
I care. I will be looking to move to another carrier when I can and I’ll pay the exit fee. Imagine having an iPhone and you have to be jealous of people that have MMS in an old phone.
I kind of understaood at first but this is bullsh*t. We should get a refund ot something. Steve Jobs has to be pissed.
jailbreak it, install ActivateMMS, and keep it on ATT. Or hell, move it to tmobile like me.
“Utterly ridiculous” also describes Apple’s “MMS requires a different radio set” excuse for not enabling this feature on 1st gen iPhones.
But, then again, this from a company that claims you need an OS upgrade to sync text notes from your iPhone to the desktop…
I care, too. Like Kevin said – “MMS is ancient technlogy”. I love my iPhone, but I really hate AT&T. I really tried to like them! I thought all the “dropped call” internet chatter was BS until I switched to AT&T. It’s far to expensive to suck this bad.
I would say that I’d love to see the iPhone on Verizon, but the memories of vCast make me vomit.
Android anyone? Hmmm………
“I shouldn’t have to remind everyone how utterly ridiculous it is that about three months now after much of the rest of the world got it, the U.S. still has no MMS capabilities for the iPhone”
The really ridiculous thing is that MMS was first launched in March 2002 in Norway…
Has anyone tried to take a Rogers 3G iPhone down to the states, and send an MMS message to another Rogers 3G phone in Canada?
Be interesting to see if it works or not. And yes, the moment I went 3.0, MMS was there and working
As a non-native english-speaking person (wow, that’s not a light sentence here
), I’d like to know what exactly are the “opt-out MMS codes”.
Can anyone please help me on this one?
Thanks.
ATT Needs to provide better service for their customers. I would never deal with over priced ATT. I get better service for half the cost on T-Mobile. That is why I stuck as a Loyal T-Mobile Customer with a G1. Thank god T-Mobile finally launched 3G in my area.
BaFF!
I have 2 AT&T phones: BlackBerry Bold and an iPhone 3GS. I wanted to send my wife an MMS this morning. I hate that I have to use my work phone (the Bold) because my state-of-the-art “there’s an app for that!” triumph of technology can’t do something I’ve been doing for years. Thanks, AT&T.
Do you want AT&T to just turn all of the features on and watch the network die? That didn’t seem to go so well for Google the other day when they did a “routine maintenance” and gMail was down for hours.
What makes everyone so sure that if another carrier, say Verizon, was the iPhone provider they would be able to handle the data demand? Additionally Verizon is notorious for crippling handsets, taking away features on models built into the phone just so they can charge you to unlock it or upgrade to a different model.
When did Verizon become this lovable telecom?
Word. You can’t be all things to all people….
Thats the problem. Verizon shouldn’t be “the” carrier. There should be multiple carriers. We should have a choice, since obviously one carrier is incapable of handling all the iPhone users in the US.
Oh and if AT&T is so overwhelmed, then they should have no problem letting me out of my contract early.
No MMS for the iphone. That’s funny. Why can’t att provide that since day one. They were the first wireless company in the U.S. way before VZ,Sprint, T-mobile. But they are the worst company out there…. Why do people pay $20 but they can’t use the full feature. Regarding tethering my friend has been doing it for 9 months on his unlocked 3g iphone. Thank God I switched to VZ and I do not experience any drop calls or failed calls and my phone is not as good as the iphone but I can do MMS and I can make calls.
Why is everyone jumping on AT&T and not Apple here? Yeah AT&T blows for taking a couple extra months since the announcement to get this out…
But what about Apple!? Why was the iPhone ever released without MMS in the first place?
The supposed end all of phones releases with no MMS while most freebie dumb phones at the time could do it.
If AT&T still can’t handle MMS now…a full 3 months since the 3GS release, It is most likely something that Apple disabled on the original iPhone because AT&T couldn’t handle it then either. They looked at the camera capabilities and the picture size and said “No way.” AT&T has a cap on their MMS for regular phones of 300kb.
Apple only released the iPhone with AT&T at the start. The ability was added in 3.0 for all other iPhones because people really wanted it and every single other carrier on the planet was able to handle it.
The reality is that AT&T has had over 2 years to get their network capacity up to snuff to handle MMS, and they have slacked. Had Apple kept the iPhone exclusive to the US, it is likely that MMS would still not be a possibility for years to come strictly because AT&T wouldn’t have wanted it as their network can’t handle it.
One can download Freedom Pix from the App Store and get started sending pictures now to mobile users or twitter without any SMS/MMS plans required: http://tinyurl.com/nnmsha Also sending to an iPhone is free if running Freedom Pix as well, anywhere in the world. And you can post your pictures on Twitter at the same time so all followers can see it which MMS can’t do.