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Rant: AT&T , MMS, iPhone & ‘viewmymessage.com’

Feb 4, 2008 | Comment | Tags: apple, att, iphone, mms

Dear AT&T/Apple,
For the love of all that’s holy – please fix this crappy, amateur hour, seemingly hard to screw-up service!

For those of you not in the know, the iPhone doesn’t natively support MMS messages, meaning that if someone sends a photo or sound file to your phone number it doesn’t come in like a normal text message or email.

Aside from the fact that it’s a sorely missed feature that is available on the most poorly constructed and thought out handsets (hey Moto…’sup?), it is made even more insulting by the fact that incoming MMS messages are forwarded to a website that can’t be viewed on Mobile Safari and that barely functions on a normal browser (www.viewmymessage.com).

For instance, when someone sends me a picture, I get a message that says something like this (this part comes in as a text message): “I sent you a multimedia message. You can view my message via the internet at viewmymessage.com using Msg ID p0cr9Zpro Password bong6hits”

So now I have to go to a computer, launch the browser and navigate to the site, then enter the obscure Msg ID and password.

3 out of 5 times it gives this error, regardless of the browser, time of day or color of my socks:

Click for bigger

After I DO manage to get in (furiously hitting cmd-r), I see a brief flash of light, then this:

Click for bigger

Isn’t that awesome! It’s awesome, trust me. You have no idea how awesome it is, seriously, I love this feature so much I want to hurl my iPhone through the internet and give someone a concussion.

Ok, granted, the missing image doesn’t happen every time. Every few messages or so I can actually see the picture sent – and it’s displayed in a 1.5″ x 1.5″ square, suitable for framing on an envelope. High-res, baby.

AT&T and Apple – seriously, get your shit together. This isn’t visual voicemail. It is basic MMS – the same kind that has been used forever and a day worldwide and that is perfectly fine on other AT&T handsets.

Either add full MMS functionality to the iphone or create a website that freaking works, ugh.

So endeth this rant.

[edit] -Check out http://babygotmac.com/a/a-nice-workaround-to-the-att-mms-problem/ for a possible workaround.

Related Links from the Web

Anonymous

A very nice and snarky reply. Because obviously only 12 year old girls take pictures of houses or computer parts or coworkers or cars or signs or so on and so on. Sheesh.

Anonymous, Too!

Yeah, I gotta say i hate it, too. How could they get so much right and get that wrong? GRRRRRRR.

Parker

I have noticed that Apple will bring out a product and miss the simplest things on the first try. Why can a mobile computing platform not handle picture messaging? Come on Apple, We love you, but what is going on?

Parker - www.MacSoftwareList.com

Not Me

Funny, takes me back to the days of other mobile developers not accepting MMS (and giving you a website address, with a stupid random password) for what seemed like an eternity...got fed up and upgraded phone.

HerbDawg

Aint that the truth!!! Lets copy and paste this every damn where and maybe apple/att will do something!

It is so embarrising to have to tell someone to email me a photo instead..

APPLE / ATT please do something!!!!

Reaperducer

If you're taking pictures with an iPhone and sending them to people, use e-mail not MMS. MMS was never intended for photographs, it was intended for light data, not multi-megapixel images. What phone doesn't have e-mail these days?

Bice

I have the same issue with my Blackberry Curve 8300. I thought maybe it was my plan but I have unlimited data. What a pain.

BradG

It's mush easier to just send a note/picture straight to someone's phone number rather than their email address. Not everyone has email on their phone, the majority of people don't use their phone for email. This is something that just should have been included. They made it a real pain.

So how do we push to get this changed!?

ca1

This is a major bug. BTW, here are still plenty of people that do not have email on their phones....

Mike

The nurse for my aging Mother sends pictures of Mom from her cell phone to my iPhone. I barely receive these valuable snapshots, I can't save them. I am very disappointed in Apple/ATT in this area. They violates the rules of automation (make things simpler, easier and less error prone) with this approach to MMS delivery.

unhappy

It's sad that the i Phone doesn't support mms and I certainly wouldn't have bought the phone had I known this at the time.

I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone at this time. I'm just sitting back waiting impatiently for an update in hopes that it will soon be available. It really is a big disappointment.

Matt

For a decent way to approximate mms on an iphone, check out snapmylife.com - you email pics to it, and people within your network on the site can opt in to receive email notifications whenever you submit a pic. For non-iphone friends, they can receive notifications via mms if they want by first emailing a pic to snapmylife so that it can detect their mms email address.

Aureliano

this is an iphone! not some random handset. i'm stunned that such a simple feature is not included in such a nice device. i love my iphone, but damn! for all the money i paid and the bullshit i had to go through to activate it, at least have mobile-mobile photo options.
and f-u to all those who knock the whole "12y/o girl" thing. Not everyone wants to spend the better part of a $1,000.00 on an iphone. you could take a cruise for that much. besides, if everyone did we still don't have that one little simple option. the photos from the iphone are very nice for a phone camera, minus the flash option. i have to take still photos in well lit environments otherwise i get crap. it would be nice to share those nice photos with loved ones and friends. if i'm at a restaurant/pub then i have to rely on a digital camera for night photos. an extra expense, more wires and uploading time. it all adds up.
I think they know this and they're just being stuck up about their technology. it's that whole, "Hollier than though" thing.

john

Its rediculous that Apple still hasnt fixed this... Had I known, I would not have gotten an iphone... I need to send pics back and forth for work. If they dont fix this soon, I will have to go back to my last phone and verizon....

Zack

Yeah, so.. I tried to "view my message" today, at 8:40 pm CST, and this is what I get....

Error 500--Internal Server Error
From RFC 2068 Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1:
10.5.1 500 Internal Server Error

The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request.

Yeah, at least whenever I had a phone with MMS it was reliable. This is f***ing ridiculous.