iPhone MMS Works; Now What?

open for business.

Apple and AT&T made MMS available to most iPhone users late Friday and it works just fine. All iPhone 3G or 3GS owners need to do is install one, piddly little update to their carrier profile on the phone, via iTunes, and the text message function becomes text-and-photo messaging.

Yes, it works. Yes, it's cool. Yes, AT&T's network can handle it just fine.

But now what?

For starters, Apple has merely caught up to other smartphone vendors that have been offering MMS functionality with different carriers for a long time. But for Apple, merely catching up is more than just meets the eye. Every time the iPhone platform adds a new function, millions and millions of people find ways to integrate it with the rest of the great functions on the iPhone: GPS, contact management, multimedia and Internet access. Some day, Apple will add Java support to the iPhone platform and millions of people will greet it like they've never seen Java before.

Sponsored post

For AT&T, every little bit is needed to keep the "iPhone Should Add Verizon And Sprint Support" chorus to a minimum. The wireless carrier finds itself constantly fighting to defend its exclusive deal with Apple over the iPhone -- including the current battle with the FCC to keep Google Voice off the iPhone platform because it doesn't want to lose business or revenue to Google. AT&T always seems to be adding functionality with the right hand while working to prevent other functionality with the left hand. It's a tired, old chorus and soon even Apple will be sick of it.

AT&T has two possible strategies it can take to fight off competition from Google. First, it can hope that Google continues to have daily outages with major services so that it winds up with bigger fish to fry. And, second, it can work with Apple to start delivering a lot more important and mainstream functionality to the iPhone so that even if it has to compete with Google on the merits, it won't be anything to fear.

Close