Who says MMS is a waste of time?

[Guest Simon Desser]

I took my son to the park yesterday afternoon and bumped in to my cousin with her two kids.

Her husband is on business for 3 weeks in the far east, and he phoned her mobile whilst I was with them, and was telling her how much he was missing her and the kids :cry:

I promptly pulled out my Tanager, snapped a picture of the three of them, and sent it to him as an MMS message 8)

A few minutes later he rang me to tell me how chuffed he was. He was walking down a busy street in Shanghai, when all of a sudden he gets a picture of his loved ones on his phone :)

Now if that ain't worth 40p then I don't know what is :!:

(You could have made an advert out of it!)

[Guest JoelRae]

aaaaaaaah, bless :wink:

good job you had your camera, I'm not sure I would have!! bring on the spv2 8)

[Guest MECX]

ive never actually sent an MMS yet---thats very cool tho bet the guy was well chuffed :)

[Guest Gorskar]

I've only ever sent an mms to an email address to check if it worked or not, which it did (the picture was an attachment) - that was during the free promotion.

Now I've lost my camera, and have no particular inclination to buy another so I guess it'll have to wait till the SPV2 for another attempt.

[Guest Simon Desser]

Now I've lost my camera, and have no particular inclination to buy another so I guess it'll have to wait till the SPV2 for another attempt.

Don't forget you could just transfer a selection of pictures from your PC and put them in "My Documents" on your SD card. Keep them quite small so the file size isn't too big, then any of these could be sent as an MMS whenever you want :)

[Guest Gorskar]

true, but then why bother with an MMS? I could just email them from my PC.

The whole point in MMSs is they are spontaneous I thought.

What I was considering was getting on of those CF-SD converter cards, so I could put an SD card inside it, and then place the converter in my proper digital camera.

Snap Snap Snap, and then put the SD card back in the phone so I can MMS the piccies - then I can get some decent shots for a change also (and use a flash!)

[Guest scaryscotsman]

Is there a maximum file size of picture you can send using mms? I can never get it to send when using the max camera resolution. many thanks in advance. :)

[Guest Simon Desser]

Is there a maximum file size of picture you can send using mms? I can never get it to send when using the max camera resolution. many thanks in advance. :)

Yeah, I find "full size" images very hit and miss.

What I tend to do, especially if I'm sending pictures to small N*kias etc, is open up "Picture Manager" then select the picture you want to send, and press "Menu" and "Edit".

It then says the image is too large, and asks if you want to resize it, hit "Yes" then "Menu" and "Done" then give the picture a new name, and it will be saved at 120 x 160 pixels (unless you choose to save it even smaller)

This gives a file size of only about 5 or 6 kb. This resolution is cr*p for anything other than viewing on a phone (but that's after all the whole point of MMS)

You'll have no problem sending images this small ;)

(What we need is an app that allows you to adjust brightness and contrast, re-size, crop and rotate images etc. in the phone :!: )

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

IA Album 2.0 should have that capability... :)

[Guest Simon Desser]

IA Album 2.0 should have that capability... :)

Cool 8)

[Guest Pagemakers]

MMS is the biggest waste of time - period. I wouldn't use the cumbersome thing if it was free, or even if I was paid 5p a time to use it.

[Guest lisann]

It isnt a waste of time if it makes someone's day... like what simon did.

Whats the saying??? A picture paints a thousand words??? something or other.

[Guest Pagemakers]

Agreed. Just my opinion.

I am amazed that any one uses MMS

I am yet to meet anyone who uses it regularly.

[Guest xanadu]

I only used MMS once, and that was just to see if it works.

Don't have any use for it really. :roll:

[Guest martin]

Why is that SMS text messaging was taken up by the millions and yet MMS does seem to have captured the hearts of mobile users ?

Simon gave us a very good example of how MMS messaging CAN have its use in mobile data but generally MMS is still seen as nothing more than a gimmick. Maybe people don't feel comfortable with pictures or videos of themselves being transmitted across the mobile networks.

I think I've sent about 6 MMS messages this year and thats probably quite a lot for some people.

[Guest Pagemakers]

its too difficult, too slow, too expensive, too cumbersome, too phone dependant, too long to compose!

[Guest Simon Desser]

its too difficult, too slow, too expensive, too cumbersome, too phone dependant, too long to compose!

Not wanting to put down our lovely Smartphones, but everything you say against MMS is actually a shortfall with OUR phones :)

Months before I got my SPV, I was using a 7650, and even back then, MMS was a piece of cake :!:

The picture taking was instant, recording sound in AMR format was instant, in fact, the only thing letting it down was, no cross network messaging. Back then it was free, and so I used it quite a bit (on Vodafone) with a couple of other people at work.

It's still early days for MMS, in a couple of years, I bet nearly ALL phones will have built in cameras, and a year or two after that, MMS could well be used widely, in the same way SMS is used now :?:

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

They also need a user-friendly MMS-friendly interface. In January, there was a timelag between O launching thre Panasonic GD87e and 156 getting more than minimal information (and a sample phone to play with) - so, of course, we got bombarded with calls from customers. It's a pig of a phone to send MMS's from. I checked the manual (which has several instructions per line) and starting with the phone switched on and "in neutral", between taking a picture and sending it to someone who's not already in your address book, there were THIRTY FIVE steps where something had to be pressed or typed in. These calls were NOT popular. "Hold the line a moment, while I load the manual, and go and book out the sample phone, then I'll talk you through what to do, and I'll do it at the same time." With an interface like THAT, it's amazing that MMS has survived. It's hard to be "spontaneous" if you need to read the manual to find out which button needs to be pressed next. Clear message there - don't buy a handset just because you think it LOOKS pretty.

[Guest fozzie]

its too difficult, too slow, too expensive, too cumbersome, too phone dependant, too long to compose!

Agreed. I couldn't have put it better myself.

I actually found that on my '3' NEC e606 it was quicker to send a video message. I could never see the point of video messaging but having used it, I thought it was pretty good. I could actually see that taking off much more than MMS.

MMS is just too clunky to use regularly. And if you don't use something regularly, it ends up not getting used at all.

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

Why is that SMS text messaging was taken up by the millions and yet MMS does seem to have captured the hearts of mobile users ?

I presume you mean "MMS does not" :) simple answer, cost ;)

[Guest urdone311]

i honestly dont see the point in MMS, we have Email on our phones...why dont they just stick to that? Take a picture, stick in in the email...hmm.

[Guest wise_guru]

well i use mms occasionally, i think it is defiantly worth it and as for just sending a email, well most phones (namely nokias) don't have inbuilt clients and anyway it is often not as instant as mms is and mms's are / can be formated so they come as a slide show.