My theory why on no tether / MMS

[lavrishevo]

I think it boils down to AT&T's inability to provide data service for the millions upon millions of additional customers the iPhone has brought to the company. I believe they are having a hard enough time keeping the ability to call out reliable let alone providing services that allow for a lot of data flow back to the their servers / network. I am no expert but it is the only logical reason I can think of. The amount of customers that the lack of these features deters is considerable. I am sure AT&T wants as many customers as they can get so to disable these feature from such a wonderful device can only mean they can not handle it at this point. The lack of the tether feature is something I am really... really disappointed in...

Sorry about the "on" in the title... trying to type this and take care of my infant son at the same time... lol

 

[docal97]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

I dont use that feature much myself but it is too hard to believe that apple would overlook something that is so basic in just about every phone known to man. I am somewhat surprised that it is not included in the new firmware.

One can always hope for a surprise although I doubt it.

 

[ruinfx]

i dont think its att. both MMS and tethering would bring them more money. if they had a tethering plan they could charge something like $60/month. steve jobs is behind this.

 

[buccsmf1]

i'm waiting till the app store launches till i rule anything out...

 

[mtfield]

I think the bottom line of the questions as to why these things aren't included is that apple doesn't like the current way that things are implemented. Either that or they are just passing these things off to dev for the app store. But apple is notorious for doing things their way or what they consider to be the "best" way. and they would rather just not have it then give a method they think is subpar. Look at voice mail. Steve hated checking voicemail on his phone so instead of taking the easy way and just throwing in normal voice mail they spent the money and resources to develop a better way, even though they knew visual voicemail would never be a selling point.. more just make peoples experience better... that is why i dont think there is mms yet.. still trying to find a better way (and email isn't the solution guys, they know that email isn't a solution for everyone or even a majority of people)

 

[onlycopunk]

Because if people were able to tether with a 30/month data plan, then no one would pay 60/month for their mobile broadband plans.

 

[bacaramac]

I am not sure about the tethering, but I thought MMS was a security issue. I read this somewhere many months back, but don't think this is the true reason.

My real guess is steve-o thinks its outdated with the ability to send via email. If they improve email to send short video clips it would almost fix this. I mean, everyone and their brother is now going to have an iPhone so why not.

 

[carfac]

I am not sure about the tethering, but I thought MMS was a security issue. I read this somewhere many months back, but don't think this is the true reason.

My real guess is steve-o thinks its outdated with the ability to send via email. If they improve email to send short video clips it would almost fix this. I mean, everyone and their brother is now going to have an iPhone so why not.

I would hope then that they would give us the ability to actually MAKE a short video clip on the iPhone. Isn't that the whole purpose of MMS? "Hey, look at this, I just shot it" sort of thing... not shoot it with your video camera, take it home, pop it in your iMac, edit it, send it back to your iPhone and THEN MMS it!

 

[werkedm3]

My guess for tethering...Apple has an upgrade path for their notebooks that is going to incorporate WiMax or some type of broadband connect. Just my guess.

 

[pavvento]

I think the main reason for the no tethering is because the iPhone uses a lot of data normally. Think about it, if someone has a razr and an unlimited data plan they are not going to be raking in 5 gigs of data per month, so it would be easy to tell if they are illegally tethering. With an iPhone it is much harder to tell because 'normal usage' can be pretty heavy which would make it harder for ATT to find ppl tethering without the right plan.

 

[mrgreen4242]

I can see Apple deciding the MMS was a bad thing to begin with and phone should have just used email and deciding to simply do it that way to push more manufacturers into supporting email on their phones. That's a very Apple thing to do, imo.

As for tethering, I can also see Steve Jobs saying the iPhone is SO GOOD that you don't need to plug it into a laptop to get online - you can do it all with the iPhone. Again, very Apple/Steve.

Finally, just a general comment about "everyone and their brother eventually having an iPhone"... well, I for one will never buy an iPhone while 1) it's on ATT exclusively and 2) costs $70+ per month, when I can get a BETTER plan (500 minutes, unlimited data on a Palm device with web/email, unlimited text and MMS, 7pm night and weekends, and m2m) for less than HALF ($30/month) that.

The iPhone just isn't worth $480+taxes a year to me... I have niPod touch which I actually do, in concert with a Palm smartphone, use as a mobile computer... Once someone releases a basic Office file editoir for it, it really will be close to a pocket sized computer.

 

[The Phazer]

Honestly, I think iPhone OS development is just slow. Implementing these things is something we can sit and argue about, but there's plenty of other features which can get done with no debate whatsoever that just haven't. There's no concievable reason for not adding horizontal keyboard support in mail for example.

There's just a lack of developers, lurching between the iPhone OS and Leopard to respond to immediate panics, and anything that can't be done over the course of a lunchtime that isn't something big like the App store just doesn't happen.

Phazer

 

[MojoWill]

you can tether in UK/EU lets wait and see if you can do it in the UK its the sae iPhone so you must be able to do it in the US plus the service provider has no way of knowing where the connection is ocming from phone or a connected device

 

[yayaba]

Finally, just a general comment about "everyone and their brother eventually having an iPhone"... well, I for one will never buy an iPhone while 1) it's on ATT exclusively and 2) costs $70+ per month, when I can get a BETTER plan (500 minutes, unlimited data on a Palm device with web/email, unlimited text and MMS, 7pm night and weekends, and m2m) for less than HALF ($30/month) that.

You have to realize not everyone knows about Sprint SERO. They don't even advertise it themselves. To many the iPhone plans are pretty reasonable compared to Sprint's regular plans.

 

[Hey Jude]

As I sit here enjoying my iPhone, I am not too disappointed anout lack of MMS, even though it's gonna suck when I really need it in about two weeks. As to why neither is included, I guess only Steve knows for sure.

Jude

 

[superleccy]

f they improve email to send short video clips it would almost fix this. I mean, everyone and their brother is now going to have an iPhone so why not.

No the "everyone and their brother" that make up 90% of my social circle work for the same major UK mobile network provider that I used to work for - and it ain't O2. Consequently, none of then have iPhones, and none of them ever will.

I can see Apple deciding the MMS was a bad thing to begin with and phone should have just used email and deciding to simply do it that way to push more manufacturers into supporting email on their phones. That's a very Apple thing to do, imo.

Most of those same people (and my parents for that matter) have had mobile phones with built-in email clients for years, yet they have no intention of using them. Reasons:

• They don't know their phone can do email, or...
• They can't be bothered to set up the email...
• ...or don't know how...
• They use a web-based email service...
• They don't want their emails un-synced away from their computers.

 

[mikes63737]

I think that they didn't include MMS because they can't make it work as well as SMS does on the iPhone. It'd be kind of weird to have pictures in green and white speech bubbles.

Oh, and maybe because e-mail does works so well with MMS. You can send an e-mail with a picture to any phone and it will arrive as a MMS. It works in reverse too - the average phone can send MMSs to e-mail addresses. And it's free for the iPhone user. And you can access the picture on the computer.

Finally, just a general comment about "everyone and their brother eventually having an iPhone"... well, I for one will never buy an iPhone while 1) it's on ATT exclusively and 2) costs $70+ per month, when I can get a BETTER plan (500 minutes, unlimited data on a Palm device with web/email, unlimited text and MMS, 7pm night and weekends, and m2m) for less than HALF ($30/month) that.

That's a hell of a deal! Who's your carrier? If I could get all of that for $30 I'd get rid of my iPhone, as much as I love it! I pay $40 a month for my line on a Family plan!

That being said, I will never buy another iPhone on AT&T. I love the one that I have but I think that the new price increases are ridiculous. I'd rather pay $400 up front than have it subsidized than pay $55 ($10 for my line + $30 Data + $15 for 1500 txt) for basically the same phone but with faster Internet. Tethering should be included for the price increase.