{"id":45008,"date":"2009-11-19T14:25:16","date_gmt":"2009-11-19T19:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theappleblog.com\/?p=36045"},"modified":"2009-11-19T14:25:16","modified_gmt":"2009-11-19T19:25:16","slug":"apple-sued-over-mms-but-who-really-uses-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/45008","title":{"rendered":"Apple Sued Over MMS: But Who Really Uses It?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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According to a report<\/a> this week on The Mac Observer, Apple and AT&T have been presented with a class action lawsuit by a customer who accuses them of misleading the public by advertising the MMS capabilities of the iPhone 3GS despite not making those capabilities available in the U.S. when it launched.<\/p>\n

(Yawn.) I\u2019ll let you mull over whether the accusation is fair; the plaintiff, Francis Monticelli, says in the suit that \u201cMMS functionality was one of the reasons people chose to buy or upgrade\u2026 it has [become] clear that AT&T’s network does not support MMS.\u201d<\/p>\n

TMO points out Apple made it quite<\/em> clear MMS functionality would not be available in America at the launch of the iPhone 3GS. Surely you remember the hilarious (and embarrassing) murmur of amusement and derision from the audience at this year\u2019s Worldwide Developer Conference when Scott Forstall introduced MMS? \u201c29 of our carrier partners in 76 countries around the world will support MMS at the launch of iPhone OS 3.0,\u201d Forstall announced, then, trying to keep a straight face, added, \u201cIn the United States, AT&T will be ready to support MMS later this summer.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Still, that little fact hasn\u2019t stopped Monticelli suing, though I\u2019m sure he won\u2019t get far. I\u2019ll never quite understand the litigation-happy nature of some of my American cousins (here in England we prefer to send strongly-worded letters of complaint) but it got me thinking about the now-forgotten drama of iPhone MMS. I can\u2019t help wondering — was it really<\/em> such a big deal? I mean, now you\u2019ve got it, do you ever use<\/em> it? Would you truly miss it if it disappeared overnight?<\/p>\n

When MMS first appeared via the iPhone OS 3.0 update I couldn\u2019t wait to try it out. I took a photo of a bowl of apples (go figure) and sent it to a pal. \u201cI have MMS!\u201d I declared, proudly.\u00a0\u201cSo?\u201d he enquired, puzzled. (I forget sometimes not everyone is an iPhone user and therefore have always had MMS.) That was back in June, a good five months ago. It was the first — and last — iPhone MMS I ever sent.<\/p>\n

Old Habits\u2026<\/h3>\n

Color me conditioned by my experience with previous iPhone OS limitations, but if I want to send someone a photo I instinctively use the Mail app. I\u2019m not alone, either — fellow iPhone owners never send me MMS messages but also choose to use Mail instead (I know because of all those \u201cSent from my iPhone\u201d footers I keep seeing).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m trying to figure out when and how this habit started; it\u2019s easy to say it\u2019s the result of Apple\u2019s decision not to support MMS functionality, but if I force my grey cells to work a little harder, and think back to those dark times before the iPhone, I don\u2019t have any<\/em> fond memories of MMS. Sure, I had the function on every one of my old phones, but I barely ever used it. So perhaps my aversion to MMS started then\u2026<\/p>\n

Either way, I don\u2019t care for MMS. It\u2019s a clunky old technology that never mattered to me. Not even my most geeky of friends ever bothered using it, with or without adding an iPhone into the equation.<\/p>\n

Apple\u2019s Chief of iPod\/iPhone Marketing Greg Joswiak once said the iPhone originally didn\u2019t include (amongst other things) MMS functionality because it wasn\u2019t high on the list of features customers wanted from their mobile phones.<\/p>\n

Naturally, there was an outcry. People were either ambivalent (they didn\u2019t care or simply accepted email was an adequate alternative) or they were furious<\/em>. Spend a little time picking through any of the popular Mac discussion boards from 2007 onward and you\u2019ll find plenty of disgruntled punters lamenting Apple\u2019s decision to not support the feature.<\/p>\n

You know how, when a child isn\u2019t playing with a toy, and you try to take the toy away, the child will instantly<\/em> want it and make a scene if they don’t get it? It\u2019s that peculiarly human tendency to want what we don\u2019t have, or what is being taken (or withheld) from us. Well, I wonder, was the outcry over MMS the same thing? And now we have<\/em> it, how many of us are actually using<\/em> it?<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re in the States and didn\u2019t jailbreak your iPhone, MMS is still fairly new to you and you might still be enjoying the novelty of finally getting it working. So, while MMS is fresh in your minds (and your iPhones) perhaps you can answer the question — where do we really<\/em> stand with MMS?<\/p>\n

Is it an indispensable tool Apple had no business keeping from us this long? Or should we reluctantly (and perhaps a little bashfully) admit it wasn\u2019t worth all that fuss and noise — Apple was right not to make it a priority and, if we\u2019re really<\/em> truthfully <\/em>honest, we never used it anyway\u2026<\/p>\n

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