Rich Communication Services (RCS) is touted as the messaging system that will, one day, replace SMS. Those with a few grey hairs will remember the early days of SMS when you could only send messages to people on the same network. But once that changed, SMS became a far more useful tool.
RCS is still a carrier specific service but negotiations between the GSMA, which represents carriers, and tech companies suggests we may be moving to a post-SMS future.
Congratulations Google Voice loyalists. Your time has finally come. After years of languishing on the vine, Google has finally updated its phone service with a new look and some new features for its Android, iOS and web clients.
When I attended the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) conference in Las Vegas earlier this year, I was struck by the enormous crowds who were willing to attend an event devoted entirely to management software. Yet despite those crowds, Microsoft is now merging MMS into its main TechEd event.
MMS support was one of the most anticipated features of iPhone 3.0, but it turns out it has a nasty side-effect: group SMS sending has effectively been dumped.
If you can't wait until iPhone 3.0 gets its official release, Whirlpool's collected the files you need to make MMS work on an Australian iPhone.
One of the features Lifehacker US singled out straight away as appealing in the forthcoming iPhone 3.0 release (apart from the finally-here copy and paste option) was the ability to send and receive MMS messages. Photo frenzy ahoy! However, there's a disturbing note at the foot of Apple's official press release:
MMS may not be available in all areas.
iPhone 3.0 won't be on general release until mid-year, which means there's plenty of time for a local telco to get on the MMS bandwagon if they can see a potential revenue source. On the other hand, there's a precedent for it not happening: visual voicemail, one of the most hyped features of the original iPhone, never made it down under. If I was a betting man, I'd be inclined to back the "no MMS for Aussies" horse.
If someone sends you an MMS in order to share a photo and your phone can't handle the MMS format (either because it's too old or because it's an iPhone), then most carriers will make the image available via the Internet, sending you a text message with access instructions. However, a recent systems upgrade at Optus means that in the future, Optus customers won't have that legacy option: the MMS will simply disappear into the ether. The annoying part? The sender will still get charged for trying to send any pictures, even if they're not received. A workaround if you know the recipient's phone is email-enabled is to send the shot as an attachment, but the whole issue underscores the importance of not just blithely sending out a picture from your phone.
