All a-Flutter about nothing

The iPhone’s inability to exchange picture text messages (MMS) with other phones has been a bug bear for many users, and a put-off for potential new buyers.

So why wouldn’t MMS be included in the iPhone? Personally I believe the barrier is philosophical rather than technological, and MMS was never intended for the iPhone because they see the device already in an age where MMS is no longer relevant – i.e. where pictures are exchanged through the internet rather than your phone company’s (often expensive) MMS system.

That’s great if all your friends have internet phones – just email anything to them, and avoid the hefty MMS charges. But the bulk of your friends probably don’t have internet phones and can’t receive email on their phone.

In this respect, the iPhone is ahead of its time, possibly to its own detriment. So what’s the solution?

Introducing Flutter – the free iPhone App from Juicecaster, touted by some as the solution to iPhone picture messaging woes. Initial reviews for Flutter in the iTunes Store indicate a disappointing experience so far (average 1-star rating at time of writing).

Flutter Fails to Deliver

Put simply, Flutter allows you to create a “picture message” by adding the phone numbers of one (or many) of your contacts, type a subject line, and either Take a Photo (on-the-fly) or choose one from your Camera Roll. It can also geo-tag your photo (i.e. store latitude and longitudinal data with your photo) if Location Services have been enabled.

The receiver of your message are sent a TEXT MESSAGE (not picture message) with a LINK that takes them to Flutter’s web page where they can see your picture.

So let’s get this straight — the receiver of the plain text message from Flutter needs to have a phone with a web browser to see your picture – i.e. they need an internet phone. But if they have an internet phone, why not just email the picture to their phone’s email address?

And your friends without an internet phone would need to type the link into their computer when they get home – if they can be bothered. I hope the picture was worth it! Might as well just email it there too, right?

Are we just going in circles and making people jump through hoops?

I’m not even going to start on Flutter’s apparent ignorance of how the other 95% of the world use + in place of zeros for the international prefix (they need you to edit them all to zeros to work with their system), and the host of technical problems plaguing their system.

So while there’s still no solution to MMS picture messaging on the iPhone, we should just ask: is MMS still relevant?  Can your friends already receive email on their phone? Do they even know? You may be surprised.

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