Right from the first press conference to introduce the iPhone 3.0 software with all its bells and whistles, Apple quietly declared way down in the fine print/questions that followed that certain features would not be available to iPhone 2G owners. A2DP was one such feature (due to different hardware), but another was MMS, more commonly known as picture messaging. Their explanation for not making pictures messages available to those with an original iPhone handset was that is was due to “hardware limitations,” insinuating that it simply lacked component needed for MMS functionality. See this footnote on their product page.
While MMS is not available on AT&T currently for any iPhone, unsurprisingly the iPhone jailbreaking community has taken it upon itself to make those picture messages available NOW, dammit.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. With a jailbroken iPhone 2G, which supposedly, according to Apple is “unable” to use the MMS function, you can enable the device to send and receive MMS whenever you feel like it. This might make AT&T look at your account funny, since none of their iPhones should be sending MMS as of yet, but over on T-Mobile its up and running in all of it’s glorious picture-sending glory. It couldn’t be easier either: see this guide for a simple how-to.
So the question is really WHY would Apple say the iPhone 2G can’t handle MMS due to “hardware issues” when it clearly does just dandy? It seems like a clever ploy to potentially upsell existing 2G iPhone owners to newer, less-unlockable, more expensive plan requiring iPhone 3G or 3GS by selectively withholding what is a major inclusion of the 3.0 firmware. In short, is Apple giving 2G iPhone users crippleware to try and prod them into upgrading?
