According to a report this week on The Mac Observer, Apple and AT&T have been presented with a class action lawsuit by a customer who accuses them of misleading the public by advertising the MMS capabilities of the iPhone 3GS despite not making those capabilities available in the U.S. when it launched.

(Yawn.) I’ll let you mull over whether the accusation is fair; the plaintiff, Francis Monticelli, says in the suit that “MMS functionality was one of the reasons people chose to buy or upgrade… it has [become] clear that AT&T’s network does not support MMS.”

TMO points out Apple made it quite clear MMS functionality would not be available in America at the launch of the iPhone 3GS. Surely you remember the hilarious (and embarrassing) murmur of amusement and derision from the audience at this year’s Worldwide Developer Conference when Scott Forstall introduced MMS? “29 of our carrier partners in 76 countries around the world will support MMS at the launch of iPhone OS 3.0,” Forstall announced, then, trying to keep a straight face, added, “In the United States, AT&T will be ready to support MMS later this summer.”

Still, that little fact hasn’t stopped Monticelli suing, though I’m sure he won’t get far. I’ll never quite understand the litigation-happy nature of some of my American cousins (here in England we prefer to send strongly-worded letters of complaint) but it got me thinking about the now-forgotten drama of iPhone MMS. I can’t help wondering — was it really such a big deal? I mean, now you’ve got it, do you ever use it? Would you truly miss it if it disappeared overnight?

When MMS first appeared via the iPhone OS 3.0 update I couldn’t wait to try it out. I took a photo of a bowl of apples (go figure) and sent it to a pal. “I have MMS!” I declared, proudly. “So?” he enquired, puzzled. (I forget sometimes not everyone is an iPhone user and therefore have always had MMS.) That was back in June, a good five months ago. It was the first — and last — iPhone MMS I ever sent.

Old Habits…

Color me conditioned by my experience with previous iPhone OS limitations, but if I want to send someone a photo I instinctively use the Mail app. I’m not alone, either — fellow iPhone owners never send me MMS messages but also choose to use Mail instead (I know because of all those “Sent from my iPhone” footers I keep seeing).

I’m trying to figure out when and how this habit started; it’s easy to say it’s the result of Apple’s decision not to support MMS functionality, but if I force my grey cells to work a little harder, and think back to those dark times before the iPhone, I don’t have any fond memories of MMS. Sure, I had the function on every one of my old phones, but I barely ever used it. So perhaps my aversion to MMS started then…

Either way, I don’t care for MMS. It’s a clunky old technology that never mattered to me. Not even my most geeky of friends ever bothered using it, with or without adding an iPhone into the equation.

Apple’s Chief of iPod/iPhone Marketing Greg Joswiak once said the iPhone originally didn’t include (amongst other things) MMS functionality because it wasn’t high on the list of features customers wanted from their mobile phones.

Naturally, there was an outcry. People were either ambivalent (they didn’t care or simply accepted email was an adequate alternative) or they were furious. Spend a little time picking through any of the popular Mac discussion boards from 2007 onward and you’ll find plenty of disgruntled punters lamenting Apple’s decision to not support the feature.

You know how, when a child isn’t playing with a toy, and you try to take the toy away, the child will instantly want it and make a scene if they don’t get it? It’s that peculiarly human tendency to want what we don’t have, or what is being taken (or withheld) from us. Well, I wonder, was the outcry over MMS the same thing? And now we have it, how many of us are actually using it?

If you’re in the States and didn’t jailbreak your iPhone, MMS is still fairly new to you and you might still be enjoying the novelty of finally getting it working. So, while MMS is fresh in your minds (and your iPhones) perhaps you can answer the question — where do we really stand with MMS?

Is it an indispensable tool Apple had no business keeping from us this long? Or should we reluctantly (and perhaps a little bashfully) admit it wasn’t worth all that fuss and noise — Apple was right not to make it a priority and, if we’re really truthfully honest, we never used it anyway…

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I have a confession to make. The new Google G1 smartphone appeals to me a lot more than the iPhone does. Not in terms of slickness and coolness of course, but actually, even though it’s about 30% thicker and nearly 20% heavier than the iPhone, I kinda’ like the G1′s more understated and utilitarian look.

I don’t own a smartphone. I live at least 30 miles from the nearest GSM coverage and we barely get digital voice service here. But were I in the market, I would be leaning toward the G1 for a variety of reasons – appearance being well-down on the list.

For one thing, I’m not a touchscreen fan and prefer a physical keyboard. The G1 has a retractable one as well as a touchscreen (albeit not MultiTouch). I like easily user-replaceable batteries; G1 has one, iPhone doesn’t. I like lots of manual controls. The G1 has a trackball and arrow keys.

As for the G1 not being video-enabled, I can live with that. Watching movies and TV shows on a tiny display doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest. I also don’t mind putting up with some advertising in order to keep costs down. Google is the master of that motif. That, and the open platform should make the G1 a much more economical smartphone option than being locked in to the draconian contract package provisions and fees for iPhone service imposed by AT&T in the U.S. and the even more outrageously expensive and restrictive ones piled on by Rogers Wireless here in Canada.

But the biggest factor tipping the scales toward the G1 for me? The iPhone is a heavily locked-down platform. G1 is open. You can unlock it after 90 days. You can use any SIM card from any carrier in it. The Android OS is free and Open Source.  Any software publisher can design programs that run on the G1 and its Android operating system.

I like open systems that give the user maximum choice, flexibility and control. When I buy a product, I resent the vendor dictating how I can use it, but Apple products have for the most part been highly proprietary in nature. Apple has always been inclined to discourage user tinkering, or even maintenance on its hardware products. Temperamentally, I would probably be more inclined to be a Linux fan rather than a Mac aficionado, being much more sympatico with the freebooting, mix and match motif of Open Source movement, except, except…the Mac OS is such a superb tool and the whole Mac experience is so elegant. I love the Mac OS for its transparent, versatile, low-hassle user-friendliness and dependability. However, that dynamic of superiority doesn’t necessarily translate gracefully to the smartphone context.

When I finally do get a smartphone, the available players could well be quite different from current offerings, but for now I would be inclined to pick the G1 (when it becomes available in Canada) over the iPhone.

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