I recently wrote an e-mail to AT&T customer service asking them about MMS. Currently, there are MMS apps coming out for specific wireless carriers (O2 in UK, T Mobile in Germany, and Vodaphone in Portugal), which, it seems, are being developed by the carrier itself (or being contracted out). Therefore, I wrote to AT&T asking them if they had any such plans. Here is the response I received:
Now, I don't know if Mr. Haynes is "in the know" at AT&T, but if he is, then one of these MMS applications will NOT be coming to the US/AT&T (since AT&T does not manufacture software). (I also love the part about e-mail being the MMS replacement, considering saving e-mailed pics currently renders them blurry!)
However, it may actually be possible to help AT&T with this problem if an actual software developer approached them with a product. It seems that if an MMS "helper" (one that bypasses/replaces viewmymessage.com was submitted to Apple, they likely would approve it as they have with others). If one was to develop such an app and charge money for it, you can guarantee you would make thousands of dollars. All this app would have to do is open up and display the image when an MMS comes into the SMS app. All a user would have to do is click the URL in the SMS text, the MMS app would open up, and an image would be displayed in the app (or in a Safari emulator). We would not even need the ability to send MMS as this is already possible using Flutter (but I guess it would be nice to have this ability and could easily be done too - and one could charge more money for it then).
I think for a very lucky developer, this app could easily be produced in a few days. The tricky part would be having AT&T cooperate, which they may be willing to do (so they wouldn't have to maintain viewmymessage.com anymore). And this would like be a financial grand slam for the developer.
Now, I don't know if Mr. Haynes is "in the know" at AT&T, but if he is, then one of these MMS applications will NOT be coming to the US/AT&T (since AT&T does not manufacture software). (I also love the part about e-mail being the MMS replacement, considering saving e-mailed pics currently renders them blurry!)
However, it may actually be possible to help AT&T with this problem if an actual software developer approached them with a product. It seems that if an MMS "helper" (one that bypasses/replaces viewmymessage.com was submitted to Apple, they likely would approve it as they have with others). If one was to develop such an app and charge money for it, you can guarantee you would make thousands of dollars. All this app would have to do is open up and display the image when an MMS comes into the SMS app. All a user would have to do is click the URL in the SMS text, the MMS app would open up, and an image would be displayed in the app (or in a Safari emulator). We would not even need the ability to send MMS as this is already possible using Flutter (but I guess it would be nice to have this ability and could easily be done too - and one could charge more money for it then).
I think for a very lucky developer, this app could easily be produced in a few days. The tricky part would be having AT&T cooperate, which they may be willing to do (so they wouldn't have to maintain viewmymessage.com anymore). And this would like be a financial grand slam for the developer.