As you know AT&T finally enabled MMS (Multimedia Messaging) on the iPhone last Friday after Apple introduced the feature back in July with the iPhone OS 3.0 update. Although the iPhone officially had this capability when 3.0 was introduced earlier this summer, AT&T iPhone customers had to wait until the end of summer before being able to use it. Now that it’s on and working for most of us (some are still having issues. If you are having issues, you may want to check out this troubleshooting document), the big question that I’ve been getting from a few friends is:
Why MMS? Why not just use email?
After all if you’re an iPhone user, you’ve been able to send pictures via email on your iPhone since day one right? In an iPhone only world, sending emails is a good way to go. However, most non-iPhones, especially non-smartphones, something as simple as email can be a real pain. Many (probably most) non-smartphone users don’t even have email setup on their phones. So the email would go to their computers and they would see what you sent then. OK, what’s wrong with that? Actually nothing at all. Desktop email is a rich experience and once the picture is received it can be printed, added to albums and managed in a photo management program. It can even be edited. So then why MMS? I don’t think that it’s one or the other (MMS or email), I think it’s a matter of using the right one for the right situation. Think of why you send SMS (text messages) vs. email today? Usually if you send someone an SMS message it’s because you want them to read it right then and there and usually you want a response. "Where are you?", "Bring home dinner." "What time does the movie start." "I’m running late." etc. etc. You could easily send each of these via email, but the problem is they may not get it in time. So you send an SMS message instead because you want immediate attention.
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