After much anticipation, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) has been enabled on the AT&T network for iPhone 3G and 3GS owners (sorry – original iPhone users are left out). There was much dismay when Apple announced that the iPhone 3.0 software would support MMS, but would not be available in the US until AT&T would allow it. AT&T claimed that they were preparing their network to handle the expected flood of MMS traffic. Most of us just assumed that MMS usage would greatly increase the traffic on AT&T’s network. However, a very interesting article questions that assumption.
Notably, the article argues that MMS has been available for years on other phones and has not been used very much. In fact, MMS only made up 2.5% of all messages sent in 2008. So it wouldn’t seem that MMS on the iPhone should add all that much traffic. Yet AT&T expects “record volumes” of MMS traffic now that the iPhone has MMS. The article also mentions that one factor in the lack of acceptance for MMS has been the unwieldy interfaces of other phones. The iPhone definitely makes it a lot easier to send MMS messages. So after all is said and done, this situation becomes an interesting case study in how user interface affects the acceptance of technology. As usual, stay tuned …
