“As you know AT&T finally enabled MMS (Multimedia Messaging) on the iPhone last Friday after Apple introduced the feature back in July with the iPhone OS 3.0 update,” Terry White blogs. “Although the iPhone officially had this capability when 3.0 was introduced earlier this summer, AT&T iPhone customers had to wait until the end of summer before being able to use it. Now that it’s on and working… Why MMS? Why not just use email?”
White writes, “After all if you’re an iPhone user, you’ve been able to send pictures via email on your iPhone since day one right? In an iPhone only world, sending emails is a good way to go. However, most non-iPhones, especially non-smartphones, something as simple as email can be a real pain. Many (probably most) non-smartphone users don’t even have email setup on their phones. So the email would go to their computers and they would see what you sent then. OK, what’s wrong with that? Actually nothing at all. Desktop email is a rich experience and once the picture is received it can be printed, added to albums and managed in a photo management program. It can even be edited. So then why MMS? I don’t think that it’s one or the other (MMS or email), I think it’s a matter of using the right one for the right situation. Think of why you send SMS (text messages) vs. email today? Usually if you send someone an SMS message it’s because you want them to read it right then and there and usually you want a response. ‘Where are you?’, ‘Bring home dinner.’ “What time does the movie start.’ ‘I’m running late.’ etc. You could easily send each of these via email, but the problem is they may not get it in time. So you send an SMS message instead because you want immediate attention. The same goes for MMS.”
White writes, “It’s pretty obvious that you can send Pictures from your iPhone 3G or pictures or video from your iPhone 3GS via MMS. After all there is a camera icon right in the Messages window for you to either snap a photo or choose one from your camera roll or library. However, what many don’t realize is that you can also send Voice Memos, Contacts and Location info via MMS as well.”
Full article here.