'Official' MMS May Arrive for iPhone

[MacRumors]

MacWorld Sweden caught the attention of iPhone users when they reported that Swedish carrier Telia is planning on bringing Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) to their iPhone users. MMS is a feature that has been long requested by iPhone users and would allow the easy sending of multimedia (photos, video) to your contacts.

Their solution appears that it may be a third party application developed by Swedish developer Mobispine. Mobispine is marketing their MMS application to mobile carriers (such as AT&T) as a solution to provide the service to their end users.

We're confident that operators will find the service easy to use and profitable with an opportunity to expand messaging usage, improve subscriber retention and hopefully increase revenue. The service will also increase customer loyalty and recognition as the brand is displayed on the user's phone. The application is white-labelled and will be branded for each operator and distributed via the App store.

While there have been many MMS-like applications that have appeared in the App Store, this solution appears like it would tie in directly with the carrier, allowing more seamless messaging between mobile phones. Of course, this would also mean that carriers would likely be able to charge a premium for MMS messages.




Mobispine describes their app:

MMS on iPhone enables easy, convenient and cost-effective communication with colleagues, friends and family. Users can easily create a new MMS and attach a picture from an album on the phone or simply take a new snapshot with the camera. The application is integrated with the iPhone's contacts for easy access. Some of the key features for end-users include the ability to easily send and receive messages from iPhone to any phone with a native and intuitive user interface. The application also offers the ability to capture a picture via the iPhone camera or the option to select from existing photos.

Apple will still have to approve the application for inclusion in the App Store, but with the mobile carrier's blessing, it seems likely this app would see approval.


Article Link: 'Official' MMS May Arrive for iPhone

[tjcampbell]

Good for some, but I'm totally fine with emailing pics.

[macaco74]

crossing fingers

[dukebound85]

be able to charge a premium for mms

dont like that tidbit of info. though wouldnt affect me with my text plan

[jmann]

Obviously the only carriers that are going to be supported are going to be the "official" iPhone networks. Pity for me with my 3G on T-Mobile.

[dant19]

slaps face!

oh wait i email

good for some, not for me though

[Applepwns]

This would make me buy an iphone. if it came to verizon.
Please apple?

[nep61]

MMS and copy paste are the ONLY 2 things missing ....bring it on

[headfuzz]

Yeah finally.

ll be able to increase the number of MMS messages I've ever sent to 6 and beyond

[dukebound85]

Originally Posted by nep61

MMS and copy paste are the ONLY 2 things missing ....bring it on

and video recording which even my 5 year old phone can do

[twoodcc]

this seems great and all, but if it costs more, then i'll just stick to email

[funnyent]

this is going to probably take a while... BUT ITS FREAKIN AWESOME

[quadgirl]

'bout time too. Only a year late!

[abiyng87]

AT&T?

[MacGeek7]

I hope this is accurate...

[adamtehbadam]

It seems like this pain-in-the-ass method of checking MMS messages could've been made a lot easier, even without built-in support. For instance - Instead of having to get the username and password from the message, write it down, then go to the site and log in, you should have a link sent to you(akin to getting free starbucks wifi on your iphone). When you touch the link, it opens up safari and displays your message without having to go thru all the BS... Just a thought.

[djalice]

At last I will be able to see all those pics people keep sending me.

It was getting embarrassing!

Alice

[dukebound85]

i would still just rather have apple support it than have a third party workaround (even if it is the carrier)

[andreab35]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

Sounds cool to me!

[chrismac00]

Now that I've had it with the iPhone and sold it to get a Blackberry Storm, this comes along :[

I'm sad.

[ditzy]

If they just added the ability to forward text messages I'll be happy.

[mknawabi]

I wouldn't exactly call running another app to do MMS 'Official'

[BornAgainMac]

Why can't it be part of the iPhone? I don't want it as an App. That sounds like a hack job. I hope I can record video on my iPhone someday without jailbreaking it.

[eff pc]

no one is going to pay extra for MMS...especially when MMS messages on any other phone counts no more than a regular text msg (well at least thats how AT&T in the US works). I also agree with a previous poster, I'd rather have a native app. Unless the carrier has special abilities to have it push to the phone, there is no point in it. How Apple should do it is...when you get an MMS msg., it comes in like a text (in the SMS app) and says You have a MMS msg...u click the msg or the blue arrow to the right and it displays the MMS msg (like in picture mode where you can hide the navigation bars by tapping the screen)(and be able to save it if its a picture like you do in safari). also...SMS/MMS forwarding is needed too...so many times i want to forward a msg to someone and have to retype it (which i usually end up not doing). (a way to do this is hold the msg u want to forward and a popup box comes up...options...forward or cancel) thats what the iphone needs...and copy and paste of course

[Bernie-Mac]

If we are paying for unlimited data and $30 for unlimited text and then they charge another fee for MMS, I, and a lot of people im sure, will be very upset