To MMS or Not MMS , thats the question!

[Watcher]

Link please?

I don't have a link but I do have experience in the matter. I've had MMS working on my iPhone 3G since March and I haven't been charged extra. It's included in the regular non-iPhone unlimited messaging package for the same price as the iPhone unlimited texting package - $20. This was officially changed by an AT&T rep and Tech Support so it is legit. From what I understand they consider MMS the same as a text message and charge it accordingly.

 

[Behshad]

I read somewhere that if you have the $20 text messaging bundle, then it will indeed be free.
But I for one am not one to add $15/line extra for MMS. I currently have the $5/m per line for 200 texts and thats plenty fine for me,,, if I can use any of the 200 allowed to send MMS , sure .

 

[JustinHorn]

If you have any text plan you can use it to send SMS or MMS. If you are on per text the MMS are a bit more I think.

 

[Behshad]

If you have any text plan you can use it to send SMS or MMS. If you are on per text the MMS are a bit more I think.

I hope youre right, but everyone has their own speculations:

What is yet to be determined is whether one MMS is equivalent to one SMS, or if there is a difference. For instance, they might decide that one MMS is equal to four SMSs. Let?s hope not. I mean, come one, you already get unlimited data (internet) with your iPhone 3GS data plan, which allows for email, which is years ahead of both MMS and SMS. The only reason any of us use SMS or MMS is to accommodate for those who have crappy cell phones.

 

[JustinHorn]

I hope youre right, but everyone has their own speculations

If I'm speculating I let people know, but in this case I'm just stating facts

For one this is how it was for me on at&t on phones before I got the iPhone and two https://forums.imore.com/e?link=htt...%2FiPhone%2FCustomers_FAQs.pdf&token=klvvOmK_ :

Will AT&T offer MMS and tethering? Later this summer, as part of the 3.0 software, AT&T will make multimedia messaging (MMS) available at no extra cost to customers with a text messaging bundle. And, in the future, AT&T will offer tethering capability for iPhone 3G S and iPhone 3G.

 

[Behshad]

If I'm speculating I let people know, but in this case I'm just stating facts

For one this is how it was for me on at&t on phones before I got the iPhone and two https://forums.imore.com/e?link=htt...%2FiPhone%2FCustomers_FAQs.pdf&token=rQQe3GG0 :

But the fact that you have MMS on yours before us, shows that youre either working for AT&T or that youre beta tester , in eitehr case, should it cost YOU anything.
Im not doubting you one bit and hoping youre right. Its just that knowing AT&T and having been their customer for 7 years now, Ive learned one thing about them : nothing is free and if they have a way get your last time, they sure will

 

[JustinHorn]

I do not nor have I ever had MMS on my iPhone. I really don't care about MMS that much to hack carrier files. I was saying that I had a text plan on my Moto SLVR before I got the iPhone and it counted as one message no matter if I sent an SMS or MMS. I also do not work for at&t, I work for myself developing websites mostly

Also, I've been with at&t since 1998...AT&T Wireless > Cingular Wireless (bellsouth) > at&t.

I'm just saying there isn't really any reason to speculate on whether they are going to charge more becuase they have come out publicly stating (see the PDF linked above), specifically on the iPhone, that it will not cost more. Plus on every other phone I've had with at&t the MMS was just included in the messaging plan.

 

[taylorh]

AT&T used to have separate MMS and Text message packages. A few years ago they did away with separate packages and went with simply "messaging" packages which include both MMS and SMS. They no longer differentiate between the two as far as sales goes. This was in line with what the rest of the industry was doing (I think T-Mobile was the first in the US.) 'Messaging' packages are common and compatible between all phones and smart phones and they are all combination MMS/SMS.

So despite the natural suspicion that AT&T will find a way to nickel and dime everyone, lay that to rest. There's no reason they would backtrack on this.

This is one reason it's sort of messed up that we haven't had MMS all along. We have essentially been paying for it.

 

[shutter]

But the fact that you have MMS on yours before us, shows that youre either working for AT&T or that youre beta tester , in eitehr case, should it cost YOU anything.
Im not doubting you one bit and hoping youre right. Its just that knowing AT&T and having been their customer for 7 years now, Ive learned one thing about them : nothing is free and if they have a way get your last time, they sure will

At the moment, if you get mms working on an iPhone text plan, you will pay a per use mms charge. If you manage to get your plan switched to a regular plan, or have family messaging, these include mms and you will not be charged any more unless you go over your plan allotment. 1 mms = 1 message.

 

[taylorh]

I have MMS working on my iPhone. I did the work around to install the AT&T carrier 5.0 profile and set up the APN and MMS settings. I have family messaging which is, from what I understand, the reason MMS isn't blocked on my lines.
It does me little good because everyone I want to MMS has an iPhone and isn't willing to do this 'hack' to enable it.
I think I'm going to restore my iPhone to remove this. The visual voicemail APN keeps getting reset and I have to keep fixing it. I'll just wait for the official release when I'll actually have people to use it with.

 

[taylorh]

I think its been mentioned here few times already but I'll explain it to you as well
When we talk about e-mailing apic/vid, we're talking about e-mail from your phone to them as MMS . they recieve it as fast as a normal MMS and it pops out as an MMS on any MMS enabled phone. THIS goes in the 'duh' category , my friend

Actually I don't think those I'm referring to are talking about emailing to MMS. Those people I refer to even poo poo MMS as a worthless method of sending photos (which of course it's inferior in terms of quality, but that's not the point.) Typical Apple fanboy-ism playing off any feature lacking or missing in an Apple product as not being there because it's not necessary (like the inability to resize a window on Mac OS from any border.)
In any case, I was more specifically referring to iPhone to iPhone correspondence.
I do use MMS to email to MMS (and even SMS when necessary) whenever someone's using an MMS capable device. But not many people I want to share snap shots with have anything other than an iPhone.

Anyway, back to the 'duh' part of my comment. If I have MMS, then I don't have to do MMS via email (duh.) It's a no-brainier that I will use actual MMS instead of doing it via email.

 

[Entertainment72]

MMS should be mandatory on all mobile devices... I will use it soooooo much more than e-mailing (which is slow).

 

[shutter]

(which of course it's inferior in terms of quality, but that's not the point.)

As I pointed out previously, this is not necessarily true with an iPhone, as it is with another mms capable phones. In my tests with 3.0 betas mms actually compressed the images less than emailing the photo. While I do believe apple will have refined this, I believe the quality of mms photos and emailed photos (if choosing the share option rather than actually copying the photo and pasting into an email) is going to be about the same.

For example selecting a photo in my photo album and using the "email photo" option gives me a attachment that is 182KB. Tapping and holding selecting copy, going into the mail app, pasting the image into the email gives me a file size of 1.6MB.

So while a higher rez image is possible, it's not the standard, and the same compression used for email will be enough to MMS and not exceeed the 300 or 600 KB limit imposed on mms.

 

[taylorh]

As I pointed out previously, this is not necessarily true with an iPhone, as it is with another mms capable phones. In my tests with 3.0 betas mms actually compressed the images less than emailing the photo. While I do believe apple will have refined this, I believe the quality of mms photos and emailed photos (if choosing the share option rather than actually copying the photo and pasting into an email) is going to be about the same.

For example selecting a photo in my photo album and using the "email photo" option gives me a attachment that is 182KB. Tapping and holding selecting copy, going into the mail app, pasting the image into the email gives me a file size of 1.6MB.

So while a higher rez image is possible, it's not the standard, and the same compression used for email will be enough to MMS and not exceeed the 300 or 600 KB limit imposed on mms.

While that's the case with the iPhone, and I'm certainly glad it is, in general MMS usually results in higher compression on most phones. That's why it's generally regarded as inferior.

I'm glad you did that investigative work. Thanks for that by the way, that's really good information. Now when people poo-poo MMS because of compression you (we) have that the data that says otherwise.
Apple may have re-defined MMS. Rather I think they're pushing the limits of MMS whereas in the past other phones have played it safe.
Data networks and the iPhone are a lot faster today than the networks and phones a few years ago. Not compressing the heck out of the images would have resulted in very long upload times had they not.

But anything with 3G and enough memory to handle 600 KB (in the case of AT&T) should not have to destroy a picture.

 

[bgro]

MMS is a necessity on a phone...most people don't check their email or even have access to email on their phones...

 

[Behshad]

bgro
please read what was posted few pages ago.
People don't need to check their email. You CAN send a multimedia from your phone using you'd email where your friend recieve it on their phone as an MMS , NOT EMAIL.

 

[redbeard]

bgro
please read what was posted few pages ago.
People don't need to check their email. You CAN send a multimedia from your phone using you'd email where your friend recieve it on their phone as an MMS , NOT EMAIL.

We get it dude, you don't like MMS, now for most of us who don't have friends that all have expensive smartphones MMS is a necessity, you can keep using e-mail..

And since not every phone out there is e-mail capable, even if you do manage to send a MMS to someone using e-mail, if you're out, you'll have to wait until you get home and log onto your pc, then log onto the ridiculous "viewmymessage" site which rarely works, to see any pics sent to you. I haven't been able to see any pics sent to me in the past few weeks as AT&T's viewmymessage site gives me nothing but errors, and people have reported e-mailed MMS messages not going through at all. So obviously this fix is needed. End of discussion.

 

[JustinHorn]

Well I thought I was lucky and had my iPhone MMS turned on, but after a little while it stopped working again, more on this thread: http://forum.theiphoneblog.com/iphone-forum/174999-t-turned-my-mms-then-turned-off.html

But one of the MMS I got out to my email and I just want to confirm what Behshad said was correct. Actually the MMS sent higher than the emailed "share" pic.

MMS = 173KB / 786 x 1024
Email Share = 93KB / 600 x 800

 

[shutter]

We get it dude, you don't like MMS, now for most of us who don't have friends that all have expensive smartphones MMS is a necessity, you can keep using e-mail..

And since not every phone out there is e-mail capable, even if you do manage to send a MMS to someone using e-mail, if you're out, you'll have to wait until you get home and log onto your pc, then log onto the ridiculous "viewmymessage" site which rarely works, to see any pics sent to you. I haven't been able to see any pics sent to me in the past few weeks as AT&T's viewmymessage site gives me nothing but errors, and people have reported e-mailed MMS messages not going through at all. So obviously this fix is needed. End of discussion.

His point is that you can send and receive mms via email.

You can send to
number@mms.att.net (or whatever carrier your friend is ons mms portal)

If your friend will use your email address (instead of your phone number) when composing their mms, they send an mms and you receive it as an email.

Neither is a great solution, IMO, since you have to know their carrier to send and you have to train your friends to send an email.

I had mms working in the 3.0 betas and it worked great, I cannot seem to train my friends to use my email address anymore.

 

[shutter]

But one of the MMS I got out to my email and I just want to confirm what Behshad said was correct. Actually the MMS sent higher than the emailed "share" pic.

MMS = 173KB / 786 x 1024
Email Share = 93KB / 600 x 800

or even shutter

It's disappointing to lose it after you've had it, isn't it. I thik where I screwed myself was instead of just using the SIM in my 3G with my 3GS, I activated the one that came with it. Now I cannot keep it working for more than a few minutes, I haven't even tried to get it working after the first couple of days with my 3GS.