Comments on: Apple Sued Over MMS: But Who Really Uses It?

By: juno

juno — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:46:54 +0000

Where can I fund speedometer calibration tool?

By: daddydoodaa

daddydoodaa — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:38:18 +0000

It’s not Highlander – there can be more than one.

For some people MMS addresses their needs and they are happy with it. Others don’t use MMS and are happier using something else.

Yea, Apple!

By: THOR

THOR — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:27:30 +0000

Dear lord, if my friends, family, and/or associates started MMSing (proper verbing here?) me their banal pics whenever something caught their eye, I’d be begging AT&T to block the service. When I have the leisure time to catch up on what folks are up to, I check my email, Facebook, and Twitter where such amusing snapshots are–and should be–residing and I can be duly entertained on my own schedule.

I send and receive SMS when I need a nugget of information immediately (“flight number?” “taking train home.” “you mom’s maiden name?”), not when “OMG YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO SEE RIGHT NOW THIS AMAZING THING I JUST SAW!” No. Tweet it, Facebook it, or email it to me, but do not //interrupt me// just to try and entertain me.

I have never MMSed an image to to a friend, family, associate, or co-worker (either on my iPhone or with my previous MMS-capable device) because I respect their time and–in several cases–pocketbook enough not to interrupt WHATEVER they may be engaged in.

By: Ant

Ant — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:11:13 +0000

I think you’ve slightly missed the point, ‘to mms or not to mms is not the question’. Whether it’s used or not or whether email is a better alternative is irrelevant. There is clearly a demand or it would’nt have been included and it was only a software update away so why not. Whilst email is commonplace it’s not been universally embraced as the majority of handsets have poorly integrated this function. Remember not everyone has an iphone! I have plenty of functions on my iphone I don’t regularly use, should I delete them? MMS is a basic application Apple should have included at launch and how & when we use it is not the issue.

By: dboy

dboy — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:28:21 +0000

Really see the US bias here. In Japan, phone users use MMS all the time – emoji, pictures et al.

But of course, being in the US – you`re being sued left, right and center for anything and everything. Look out!

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:23:56 +0000

MMS is one of those “horses for courses” things. Some people use it and find it useful, other people prefer to send email.
On the iphone, you can’t realistically claim it’s more convenient to either send or receive MMS over email (as long as you have push enabled and if you don’t, you can’t blame Apple or your provider) since either one just pops up on your screen incoming, and is a one-touch selection from the camera app outgoing. However, it is almost always cheaper to email than to MMS, so that’s a big deciding factor.

It seems that generally people don’t use it very much because the only thing anyone ever sends (really) in an MMS is a photo, and as HZC and James said above, everyone and his dog uses Facebook or similar to post photos. Even those without Facebook-capable phones (there’s not so many now) seem to get on it sufficiently frequently for it not to be an issue. Admit it, how often do you need to send or get a photo RIGHT NOW?

So, yeah – not an extensively used technology, but as the author said, if we don’t have it and everyone else does, we want it, even if once we do have it, we’re never going to use it. It’s that warm and fuzzy feeling of knowing you CAN, even if you never will.

By: Laskeuma

Laskeuma — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:57:14 +0000

The reason why people (at least in Finland) use MMS include the following:
-It has been possible a lot longer than it has been possible (or feasible) to access email via mobile.
-There are still countless important people who don’t use email (at least daily, or through their phones) but still find it nice to receive snapshots of their loved ones (e.g. grandparents receiving photos of their grandsons from a vacation trip).

By: John Johnson

John Johnson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:11:09 +0000

On the iPhone, it’s trivially easy to email an image. It’s just as convenient to send. And, for me, it’s just as easy to view. If I want to do something with it later, it’s right there on my computer, where I can do with it what I want.

For me, email is most definitely more convenient than MMS. I _never_ used it when I had my Palm, and since my iPhone didn’t have it the first 20+ months, I never missed it. I’ve gotten, I think, 1 MMS in the last 4 months.

By: Adrian Hoe

Adrian Hoe — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:42:11 +0000

As the matter of facts, I have neither received or sent any MMS since it was introduced many years ago although my phone did support the feature. When my friends and I want to send pictures, email is our favorite.

By: flunkycarter

flunkycarter — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:38:52 +0000

freak