MMMess in the US
The iPhone in the US has finally entered the end of the 20th century with the arrival of MMS. Naturally, Americans are giddy with excitement about the prospect of spending 30 cents to send a photo of their cat to their mothers using who are still using a Nokia 6610.
Here in the rest of the world, we have another view of MMS. It’s called a waste of money.
MMS just isn’t used anymore. There are many cheaper ways to send photos to people. Dozens of phones now use email, which is upfront free. Instead of spending 30 cents to send one photo to one person, I could just upload it Facebook and allow hundreds to see it. Heck, I could even use Twitter. MMS isn’t an exciting new technology because it isn’t new.
And to tell the truth, people discovered that MMS was a failure of a service the moment it came out. Even in the days of emailless phones, the days without Facebook and Twitter (I shudder at the thought), no one was that desperate to send a photo around.
To the people of the United States, enjoy your MMS while you can because it’s a passing fad soon to be forgotten.
NEWS FLASH: 30 People in California Quit The iPhone, Rest Of World Laugh At Misfortune, Apple Giggles Under Breath
3:34 Aug 8th, 2009 | Notes
It’s being hailed the “mass exodus” of people from the iPhone. In the US, plagued by network issues and a US only Google problem, a few high profile people in the technology industry have decided that they’re abandoning the iPhone.
The reasons are quite clear and understandable. In the bay area of San Francisco, the cell service from AT&T (the sole US carrier of the iPhone) is reportedly awful. Complaints of repeated call drops, bad reception and the recent debacle over Google Voice have lead some of the most well known people in the tech industry, such as Molly Wood and Mike Arrington, to cancel their AT&T service and subsequently change phones all together.
Reporting side of this story aside, it’s time to get to down to my opinion.
The first thing I see when looking through the list of reasons why these high profile people are quitting the iPhone is this: US only problems. Let’s take a look, shall we?
- No MMS - US only problem
- Google Voice app rejection - US only problem
- Bad reception - US only problem
- Call drops - US only problem
- Network congestion - US only problem
- General network slowness - US only problem
In the rest of the world, these problems don’t exist. Every non-US carrier supports MMS. Google Voice is a US only product. Other cell phone networks are handling all the extra strain from increased iPhone sales.
So ignore the tabloid press. While people in the US are close to tears with the situation they find themselves in, we in the rest of the world are laughing at them and enjoying our stable, fast cell networks while sending MMS messages to each other (not really, who seriously still uses MMS?). And all without the help of Google Voice. The iPhone is not dying, it just got a scratch. Don’t panic just yet.
