During the iPhone OS 3.0 event, Apple announced that the iPhone would finally be able to send and receive MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service). It was also during that same event that we found out that the first generation iPhone would not be getting the highly sought after feature. People began speculating that the first generation iPhone hardware may just not be capable, but of course that couldn’t be the case since there are jailbreak applications out there, such as Swirly MMS, that are capable of doing such a thing on first generation iPhones. Instead of speculating any further, MacLife decided to try to get some cold hard facts straight from the source, the chip maker.
MacLife contacted an Infineon representative, the company that makes the PMB8876 chip contained within the first generation iPhone, to see if they knew the reason why Apple decided not to allow MMS on the first generation iPhone and here is what they came up with:
We contacted an Infineon representative in Milpitas, CA to uncover the details. The gentleman that answered the phone kindly explained that there is no way the Infineon chip inside the original iPhone is incapable of receiving MMS since that function relies on software rather than hardware.
MacLife also searched to find mobile phones that used the same chip to see if they too were unable to send or receive MMS. To no one’s surprise, the two models they discovered to contain the same chips as the first generation iPhone were both equipped with MMS capabilities.
So if it’s not the hardware, than it must be the software. MacLife attempted to get a statement from Apple regarding the situation and they received the usual treatment:
“Now the hardware has changed enough between these two devices that not all the features will be available on the original iPhone. For instance, MMS and stereo Bluetooth will not be available on the original iPhone.”
Apple never claims that the original iPhone is incapable of MMS, they simply state that the hardware has changed enough for the feature not to be available. Apple has always been good with words.
The moral of the story is that when iPhone OS 3.0 finally arrives this summer and you are a first generation iPhone user, don’t go beating on Infineon’s door, take your beef up with Apple.
While, I feel, one of the better companies out there for overall customer treatment… Apple is still a business after all and they do ‘artificially’ limit features. Anyone who truly follows Apple’s offerings should be well aware of that fact.
really? i’m having a difficult time thinking of previous examples of apple artificially limiting features — though i’m sure you or someone else can cite one.
regardless, i have to say this particular case annoys me quite a bit. i had an original iphone, i now have a 3g, and i’ll be buying whatever new one comes out in june.
so i’m not personally affected by this, but IMHO, it smacks of excessive greed on apple’s part, because the fact is that the original iphone is fully capable of MMS, and it should have been an available feature all along. now, MMS is finally being enabled, but the purchasers of the original device are being “penalized.” it would be different if the device weren’t capable of MMS. but the fact that it is capable makes apple look bad for “forcing” people to buy another device.
i realize apple’s a business, but this seems like a dirty trick. apple should ensure that the 3rd-generation iphone has enough hardware features to entice people to buy it. (better battery, better camera (a flash would be nice), a faster processor — and whatever else they come up with). i just don’t think it’s fair to make people buy a new, expensive device that their original device is fully capable of supporting.
Would you happen to know if the new iphone (that is scheduled to come out next month) is going to have mms capabilities?
Yes it will, along with the iPhone 3G. The only one that won’t be able to is the original.
Well people, it’s clear that Apple just want to retire the old iPhone 2G. Still fully functional, the only way to do that is to cut functions via software. The beginning: MMS and Stereo BT; at last, iPhone 2G will be unable to upgrade to certain OS version. During this, lot of users changing to a new iPhone device, fully software operative.
Think about it: it’s just an Apple commercial maneuver.
There are tons of features that Apple could have stuffed into the original iPhone with minimal effort, such as copy/paste, MMS messaging, landscape texting, adobe flash support, and much more, but they didn’t include them for whatever reason. And as a software developer, I know that it doesn’t take 2 years to develop these features. Apple purposely limited the amount of features so that they have more to release later on and then they look like a hero for adding features that any free phone in the past 5 years has been able to do.
I just thought of another example of something that should have been in the initial release of the iPhone os but will be added as a huge new feature later on: video recording.
Everything I own is on my iPhone first gen. I don’t want to have to get a whole new iPhone when the one I have is just fine, just to send pictures. That’s a bunch of bs Apple.