How did Apple nail so many features of the iPhone and yet get picture messages so horribly wrong?
Right now when you receive a picture message via SMS on the iPhone you get an alert that looks like this:
But since there’s no copy/paste feature, you’re apparently expected to hold the 9 character MessageID and the 8 char password in your head, switch over to safari, go to viewmymessage.com and type these in the form fields. I guess that’s realistic if you’re this guy but us mere mortals don’t have that kind of mental swap space.
AT&T should just put a link in the SMS to retrieve the picture. It’s no Treo experience like getting the pic immediately but it’s a one-click retrieval step at that point since the iPhone automatically creates links for valid URLs in messages. And this method would be no less secure since they already put these tokens as text in the SMS now.
If getting AT&T’s cooperation to fix this isn’t an option, Apple could still solve it by the having the SMS app recognize and parse the MMS alerts that AT&T issues and create a dynamic local page that posts those variables. Either one of these would make multimedia messages tolerable on the iPhone- it’s basically unusable now. I don’t know how Apple is prioritizing their improvements – I know they probably don’t expose that anywhere but it would be good if they allowed people to vote for fixes. BTW, Matt Assay has a good discussion of other iPhone brokenness. It’s such a beautiful device but has some things that are conspicuously annoying. It’d be great if their calendar worked more like the Treo’s and I still haven’t figured out if/where it syncs data from the notes app to the Mac.
Word up! That is such an annoying feature. I hate having to tell my friends that I simply can’t get picture messages anymore. AND, whats even more annoying is that if I DO write that number down and put it into the website, 100% of the time is say some error has occurred and the media is not available. EVERY TIME. Arggg!
I work at AT&T supporting data stuff (except iPhone, we transfer to Apple for that) until this Friday. Free at last! :)
With most other handsets like the HTC models (8125, 8525 and 8925 “Tilt”), Samsung i607 “Blackjack” and i617 “Blackjack II”, Treo 600-750 (God help the poor Cingular/AT&T Treo owners, I wouldn’t use one as a paper weight), AT&T has some say in what goes into it (software) and how it is supposed to function.
With the iPhone AT&T (from what I gather inside) has no say at all in what goes into the iPhone. The company is just the lucky chosen one to be allowed to sell it in the U.S.
Other than the AT&T logo, AT&T has almost nothing to do with the iPhone, except for carrying it’s voice and data traffic over the network.
If someone calls for help, and somehow mistakenly ends up in an AT&T “data support” call center the call gets routed over to Apple support in north Austin.
And no, the iPhone does not do MMS (photo messaging), as a part of Apple’s design. I don’t know why.
The phone has a browser, and it could easily link to the MMS website to see it, but Apple must not have thought that was important. Or maybe that will be one of the “upgrades” that will cause you early-adopter gadget-loving morons to stand in a fucking line for hours to buy the “2.0” version. :)
“Look! Now the iPhone 2.0 can do MMS, just like a Motorola from 2003!” — Stand in the line, fuckers. :)
I’m no fan of AT&T (and I work there, for a couple more days), but this fuckup is all Apple.
I love Apple (started with my SE/30 many years ago) and Steve Jobs too. But he’s working you people, and you know it. But you’re ok with it and will continue to buy his stuff. You like the shiny casings, live with the shortcomings.
Sometimes I think Steve could sell a chunk of human feces with a USB port, and you know damn well at least 100k people would stand in line to buy it and see what it’s like. :)
Boatloads of phones have been able to receive picture mail directly (no click) for years prior – how they missed the boat on this one is beyond me. Its pretty annoying to realize that the 5+ year old Samsung collecting dust in my toolbox can handle pictures better.
@Tim – believe me i was well aware that the Treo did some things better and yet I still switched to an iPhone because overall it’s just an incredibly cool device. Things like web browsing which I would only tolerate doing in an emergency with the Treo I now do leisurely while standing in line with the iPhone.
I’ve noticed these scathing posts lately in response to what people call “Apple Fanboys.” I don’t know what qualifies someone as a fanboy and what exactly is the source of your sourness- i just like Apple products because generally they work how i want them to more than other products do. Us “fuckers” stand in line not because we’re all brainwashed idiots but we like quality products and Apple typically produces them. Try one sometime- you might like it.
There _were_ some glaring omissions on the 1.0 iPhone and yet they nailed enough stuff to get a massive number of people like myself to buy it and put up with AT&T. And I’m sure the next iteration will solve many of the inadequacies. I could give 2 craps about the shiny casing (do you really think that’s why people are buying it? really?) – it’s the experience and usability and if you buried your acidic attitude for long enough and tried one you might understand what a bunch of other peopel have already figured out.
sean
Gotta love the “2G” (80-140kbps) speeds too, eh? It’s 2008 now, and most phones run on the 3G network with AT&T (up to 700kbps on HSDPA).
A shiny cool phone (that runs orders of magnitude slower) is the right choice though, eh? :)
Back in late 2005 the company decided they would no longer accept any more phones that didn’t run on the 3G network.. until the iPhone. Your mom’s lousy Nokia probably pulls web pages faster than your iPhone.
I was at a baseball game with my buddy a few weeks ago.. And I asked him about something he didn’t have an answer for. He started the query on his iPhone (he bought when he worked with me at AT&T), then placed it in his shirt pocket to wait for it to finish loading.. My feeble Motorola V3xx pulls pages faster, heh. :)
Anyone who owns a current iPhone bought the “beta” version. Steve loves you.
The funniest thing is those TV commercials that show someone browsing at broadband speeds, pinching and spreading the fingertips as they go.. Not even close to reality. :)
Good times. $500-$600 down the proverbial tubes, eh? :)
@sean I’m sour because of the way Apple and AT&T mislead people. I work for AT&T, and they will lie to your face with a smile. So will Apple.
I’ll be gone from AT&T next week. I’ll feel much better then. :)
@tim – “Your mom’s lousy Nokia probably pulls web pages faster than your iPhone.”
and yet the browsing experience on a Nokia sucks so bad that I guarantee only a fraction of Nokia users actually use their phone for surfing the web. I would venture to bet 99% of iPhone users use it for web surfing. I don’t care if the network’s 5G – if the experience is lousy you won’t use it and it doesn’t make a difference.
congrats on our departure from AT&T- i imagine that would be a crappy place to work.
$500 spent on the iPhone- no regrets here. I would have paid that much for the mapping feature alone while I was in SF for November (and the pinching thing really does work like in the commercials).
I have no interest in trying to sell the iPhone or defend it. I just think it’s funny when people like yourself lash out against Apple as if Apple killed your firstborn or something. You gotta agree that any company able to generate so much love or hate for its products is doing something right.
sean
I don’t have an iPhone, but I would bet it syncs the notes to the Stickies app.
– max
The iPhone is the greatest invention ever created. It has no flaws.
now get back to work and teach your friends to use your email address rather then your phone number. I think they will find its a more universal way to communicate :-)
@Tim – believe me i was well aware that the Treo did some things better and yet I still switched to an iPhone because overall it's just an incredibly cool device. Things like web browsing which I would only tolerate doing in an emergency with the Treo I now do leisurely while standing in line with the iPhone.
I've noticed these scathing posts lately in response to what people call “Apple Fanboys.” I don't know what qualifies someone as a fanboy and what exactly is the source of your sourness- i just like Apple products because generally they work how i want them to more than other products do. Us “fuckers” stand in line not because we're all brainwashed idiots but we like quality products and Apple typically produces them. Try one sometime- you might like it.
There _were_ some glaring omissions on the 1.0 iPhone and yet they nailed enough stuff to get a massive number of people like myself to buy it and put up with AT&T.; And I'm sure the next iteration will solve many of the inadequacies. I could give 2 craps about the shiny casing (do you really think that's why people are buying it? really?) – it's the experience and usability and if you buried your acidic attitude for long enough and tried one you might understand what a bunch of other peopel have already figured out.
sean