AT&T -- MMS Later. Tethering... Um... Er... Bai!

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

iPhone 3.0: Tethering Hero

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Although humorous for the crowd attending the WWDC Keynote today, when Apple VP of iPhone Software, Scott Forestall, announced MMS and Tethering, AT&T being deferred until later this summer on the first count, and totally glossed over on the second count, likely won't be as amusing for US iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S owners who will miss out on fairly standard functionality other carriers and regions may get on 3.0 launch come June 17.

To learn more about iPhone tethering, visit Apple's iPhone feature page. To learn more about AT&T's support for these features--

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.

25 Comments
  • Wow, it even lets you make and receive calls while tethering. I think I'm moving to Canada (Rogers).
  • I really hope that AT&T now comes forwards and says "We know, we know, you're all disappointed. But rest-assured AT&T customers will receive MMS capability by July/August __, 2009"
  • Screw that, it's available on every other etwork outside the US on the 17th, yet we have to wait another 3.5 months??? That's not even late summer, that's fall.
    I'm going to be calling AT&T to complain, I suggest everybody else do too.
    I told all my friends recently that I will finally be able to get picture messages real soon, now I've got to tell everybody to not send them until the fall! Thanks for nothing AT&T!! Verizon can't pick up the iphone soon enough.
    AT&T needs to be put out of business, they are infinitely worse than GM or Chrysler, the telecoms contribute massive asmounts of money to politicians so they are untouchable, don't forget it was AT&T leading the charge to spy on us all for the Bush administration.
  • MEH!!! I'll stay on my 3.0 beta 5 and enjoy tethering until the beta expires.
  • ...and MMS!!!
  • WTF AT&T!? I swear, I never thought a company could be so incompetent. Yet, here they are bending us all over and pounding us from behind again!
    I agree with redbeard. Verizon couldn't get the iPhone soon enough!!!
  • I didn't understand why people hated Att so much until now
  • at least we others non-US have finally got mms. it was completely unreasonable to hold us hostage to at&t practices.
  • wow at&t,cant ever give us mms. u suck! moved to them for iphone... bring it on verizon i'm gone, 200 buck cancellation will be a pleasure.
  • well on O2, if we want to upgrade to the new iPhone 3Gs, then we have to pay out our existing contract (£210), buy the new iPhone 3Gs (£280)and get a new 18th month contract at £35 per month. now isn't that customer satisfaction for you. not. oh, and also we have to pay an extra £15 a month to tether. Thanks a lot O2.
  • There is nothing as dumb as a company too dumb to recognize their future playing out in before them in real time. Yes, we can all point to the stock prices of GM and Chrysler who failed to innovate. But we can also point to comcast cable, another telecom evildoer getting their butt kicked by Verizon Fios. I can testify as a former comcast hostage that I signed up for fios the same day they went active in my neighborhood. And they can show me all the commercials they want about how they are so much cheaper, I don't care what kind of enticement comcast dreams up, I hated how they treated their customers.
    .
    At&t right now the iphone makes me your hostage, but the day that the iPhone is no longer your exclusive product -- I'm history.
    .
    You know you have to be incredibly stupid to embrace the same shortsighted tactics that is currently causing a fellow telecom to lose market share as fat as Verizon can lay the hardware or even the same kind of philosophy that caused you to lose your first monopoly. Is this what they teach at the Harvard MBA program, if at first your exclusionary practices don't succeed, try them again?
    .
    I won't be buying any stock in AT&T there's no long term future in it. Wasn't GM a blue chip before it dropped to a few cents per share. The recalcitrant dividend?
  • It really is a shame ATT can't deliver MMS. If the reason is becuase they have to go through accounts manually to turn it on then fine. Get a ton of temps and have them do it in mass. But I'm a programmer, it's what I do. I find it very hard to believe that there isn't a database that houses all the customers data and a simple query couldn't be run to flip on MMS. I don't much care for tethering as ATT will price it out of what I want to pay, and with logmein's app I can remote my computer from my phone so I already have full functionality. I just want MMS!
  • What is bogus is that every other camera phone on ATT's network can absolutely send/recieve MMS currently today!!! What makes the IPhone any different than any other phone on their network that ALREADY can do the above? The Tethering I can sort of understand I am not big on Tethering anyway so that isn't an issue for me, However I do like to send/recieve MMS's on occasion currently. WTF!
  • I liked AT&T up until now....I know for a fact that AT&T is purposley delaying MMS support. Because I know someone that got the 3.0 beta and accedently got MMS support with it, and he was sending pictures left and right up until AT&T found out and quickly deleted MMS from his account. They then gave him a call saying that he was not supposed to get those features yet and that he would have to wait untill late summer or early fall until they would give the feature back to him. So clearly AT&T can give us the mms feature right now but just doesent want to for some reason. I think they don't want to give up bandwidth to the large ammount of iPhone users, or something allong those lines...anybody have any ideas why they would wait to give us this feature?
  • @jasonb
    they want to find a way to charge us extra for mms
  • i just purchased 2 iphone 3gs and nowi find out they dont mms att you suck i just left tmobile for nothing dissapointed you said 3.0 was gonna have mms im gonna cancel my phone thank god i dont get them till monday
  • this really f-up I left t-mobile to have the I PHONE 3G and it's beautiful but I can;t stand the thought of staying AT&T for another year. I bragged about 3.0 and how the phone was going to be unstoppable, but mms not being there was a let down every damn phone even the $30 ones can do what my super phone can't screw AT&T hopefully Verizon will do a stick up and snatch the iphone from and we all can watch the historical failure of AT&T crumble to the ground.
  • I feel the same way, i just spent 300 to close out my tmobile account and gave away my old unlocked 3g capable of mms, for a new 3gs with minimal upgrades and a damn useless compass......
  • Shouldn't there be some sort of class action lawsuit against AT&T for these issues? Initially the options weren't available with the iPhone yet we were still paying for "unlimited data" and the fees for texting include MMS. Now that it is clearly available, isn't it more of a "right" for us to have access to the features? At minimum, the MMS feature is something that we've been paying for right? (Unless I am mistaken the fees for texting include MMS if it were a phone that it's available on. I could be wrong.) Either way, with unlimited data it should be covered in the existing plan. Tethering should be allowed without an extra fee as well. Our "unlimited data" plans cover 5GB of data that we should be able to use at our discretion, not AT&T's. If we choose to tether and use it up, so be it. We PAY FOR IT! If we go over, then we get charged. That's the agreement. IF they charge us more to tether, I think that's criminal to some extent. It's them saying that you can pay for 5GB as long as you can't possibly use it. If you CAN, you'll have to pay us more. I HATE AT&T now. I haven't been happy with them at all but this last wave of BS ensures that my wife and I are gone and never returning the day that our contract is up. Less than a year. Apple and AT&T make a great couple. They're both control freaks. Funny, the iPhone, AT&T's most whiz bang phone and it can't even MMS! It's EMBARRASSING!!!! All I can do now is tell EVERYONE that asks about my iPhone, NOT TO BUY ONE or get STUCK with AT&T!
  • All cell phone companies are incredibly terrible. There was this whole thing maybe a month ago about how much it really costs them to even send a text message but they want to charge us 20-25 cents a message does not matter if international or domestic if you run out of messages. AT&T to not have MMS when the 3.0 software or the Iphone 3gs was released is incredibly stupid on there part. First off they did not have 3 months to work on it when it was announced in March they had probably a whole year. I want to upgrade to the 3gs but I don't want to get stuck with another 2 year contract with AT&T so I am debating to buy one or wait to see if Verizon signs something with Apple for next year. Verizon should tank as a company if they don't. Apple should suffer economiclly or something if they sign with AT&T again because they obviously are not listening to us when we tell them we asre not happy
  • Not tryin' to spam here. But I made a facebook group to express our displeasure with AT&T being lazy about enabling MMS.
    First I want to say, AT&T is the biggest group of liars. If they don't know the answer to a problem, they'll BS their way out of it. They can enable MMS, but it depends on the tech you talk to, (and how pleased he is with his job)..I've found that calling in the evenings gives you the best chance of getting MMS enabled. I had it enabled once, but they had a provisioning error and it barfed...so you basically will have to spend time calling and recalling until you get a a tech that knows what they're doing. If the person on the other end sounds stupid (and you'll know)...just hang up and call back.
    Anyway, join the group if you're so inclined, and let's let AT&T hear us.
  • how can I find this facebook page? I F ucking hate att for this s hit!!
  • The funniest thing I stood in line the day the new 3gs came in. New 2 year line etc. When I bought and configured the phone at AT&T I was able to mms immediatly. Ironicly my 32 3gs was stolen the next day. I had to get another one ao I opened a second line to avoid a 600 dollar charge. When I did this at the apple store cause AT&T was sold out I noticed that mms had been disabled I've tried all the tricks and can't get it turned back on. This is some bs I know u can mms all day long. What's the deal with this bs
  • trust me, if and when verizon gets the iphone, i will definely be leaving at&t cause of this bs with mms. i was so mad to see the delay from at&t. at&t will be losing me as a customer for sure. Everyone else should leave to. make them sorry for treating their customers so bad. but as always, some assholes will stay.
  • Thanks for this! I hope you have a awesome night!