Reports began appearing today that the MMS rollout for iPhones on AT&T may have begun. Â I, like many others, played with my carrier settings file when the iPhone 3.0 OS was released, which allowed tethering and allowed you to open up the MMS settings and make changes.
After upgrading to OS 3.1 over the weekend, I found that my MMS has begun working. Â I can both send and recieve picture messages on my iPhone, which is a welcomed feature. Â OS 3.1 or iTunes 9 also killed the ability to change the carrier configuration file, so I am unable to setup tethering on my iPhone, which OS 3.0 allowed with the reconfigured carrier file.
Most likely, my working MMS is a result of my earlier changes, but it may be the same for many other non-hacked iPhones out there, so give it a try. Â I have had the picture messaging icon exposed on my messaging application for a while, but the network would not accept any messages with pictures attached from my iPhone. Â To check to see if your MMS is working, you should see a little camera on the input line of the messaging application. Â I haven’t tried to send a video (alas, I’m only an iPhone 3G – not a 3GS with video).
Speaking of the tethering option, though. Â The OS 3.0 tethering configuration change was not without issues. Â I did noticed in dot releases of iTunes that the changes for exposing the tethering option would be lost after syncing back to iTunes. Â I figured this was a way of preventing advanced users from using the tethering option when AT&T didn’t want it. Â It was massively inconvenient for my configuration to change automagically when I tried to tether at my parents house and get some whiff of AT&T’s spotty service in the rural areas of South Carolina. Â Oh, well, I’d love to pay – AT&T, please give us tethering.
In related news, AT&T seems to know that its 3G network can’t keep up with the iPhone (<sarcasm> really??</sarcasm>).