Alternatives to MMS

A few years ago MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) was going to be the thing to really make the most of Camera Phones, the quickest and easiest way of sharing your photos with a friend or a family member. Sadly it seems like the lifespan of the MMS is almost over, the high cost of the service and size limitations have effectively killed it before it became the success it was expected to be. When Camera Phones first hit the market around the turn of the century few expected phones to advance to the point where they became small and powerful mobile computers (as Smart Phones now are), it's been the move to Smart Phones that has effectively killed the MMS.

Rather than writing a long obitury of the MMS I've instead decided to look at some of the most useful alternatives to actually using MMS, something I quickly did in an old article looking at the pros and cons of using e-mail instead of MMS. Whilst it is true that E-mail is still the prefered way for some, such as myself, it's certainly not the only way, in fact their is so many different ways that I'm not even going to be able to cover them all, just the most straight forward ones.

The most widely used "third option" (behind MMS and E-mail) are the new messenger apps, things such as Whatspp? and Ebuddy XMS which allow you to send pictures, messages and other forms of media over the internet for free. This is a service much like sending images over MSN for example. For this you only need to make sure you and your friend are both using the same messenger service and both online at the same time. Whilst some people may like this method (and some genuinely do use it an awful lot of the time) I've not been sold over to it personally due to fact that I've simply found Emailing to be quicker, though this is likely to change over the coming years as these services continue to improve.

Facebook has been an internet super-power for the past few years and now you can use the massive social networking sites to send pictures directly from your phone to someone on your friends list. To do this you need to use the Facebook "Messenger" app and select it as a "Share via" option (with an Android, I'm not exactly sure with other phones) when you've selected a picture, then slect a friend. This is a bit of a middle line between e-mail and the above messaging apps as this can be recieved on a PC or a Phone (or anywhere else where the recipient can access their Facebook).

You could as a fifth option (and by far the least attractive for some pictures) share them publicly via Social Networking sites like Twitter, Picasa or Google+. If the picture is something you do want to share with a wider viewing public this is a much better option than E-mailing it to a number of people. However on the flip, if the picture is something that you would only like one particular person to see you'd be rather silly to use this option.

As said at the start of this post, modern phones do have a host of other options to share pictures, though I'd say these are the main 5 to look at if you wish to share the picture with someone further a field than the Bluetooth range on your handset. Of course if you are close enough to use Bluetooth I'd reccomend using that instead as it's quicker and much easier than using things like Ebuddy XMS or Facebook.

A solution to an MMS problem on the HTC Wildfire

I know the phone is old an old one but people are still using it and thanks to the HTC Wildfire S the name seems to have popped up once again. I've not a Wildfire S to test on but if you are trying to send MMS (media messages) on a HTC Wildfire and keep getting a "Generic network failure" the solution is usually really simple to solve.

Most of the time if you're getting this error you are connected to Wi-Fi with your phone and as a result the phone isn't able to send OR receive things over the data network. What you need to do is turn off the Wi-Fi connection and let the phone attempt to resend the picture. This should solve that problem as long as you can actually receive an internet connection via the data network.

Please note I've not tested this with a HTC Wildfire S so I'm not sure if it's been corrected on the new version of the phone.

How to send video messages (MMS) from your Samsung Galazy S2

 So you've got a brand new Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone, one of the market leading handsets and you want to send your mate a video of something. To do this you need to change a few things before you start. Obviously you need to open the Camera application to begin then you need to select the video camera option (move the slide on the side from the camera icon to video camera option). After you've done this click on the "cog" icon for the Settings menu and change the recording mode to "Limit for MMS".

 After you do this you will notice one big change to the usual settings menu. The "Resolution" option will be locked out and lock in a rather poor rate of 176x144 a massive downgrade on the possible HD video recording ability of the phone. This is a bit disappointing though is simple to explain. The MMS system has a rather small limit on how much data can be sent, the low ratio means you can record several seconds of video whilst 1 second of HD video goes massively over the limit.

After you've selected the right settings then recorded your video you need to click on it in the bottom right hand corner (see the image of a garden in the image above) and you'll get a small menu at the bottom of the screen saying "Share", "Play" and "Delete". If you click "Share" you get the menu that is similar to the one you can see to the right hand side here. The option you want to click is "Messaging" which will open up the
recogniseable messaging screen you can see to the left here.

As my haphazard on screen guide says you need to add your recipient, your message then click send. This will count as an MMS message so beware if you haven't got an MMS allowance that it will be added to your bill (and can be quite a noticeable amount).

As I mentioned earlier, this won't be a video that will show off the HD recording ability of the phone though and it will, sadly, look rather blurry (even with the Superfine setting). This is due to the limitations of the MMS system and the networks own standard as opposed to the phone it's self. Hopefully future technology will allow for bigger and better quality MMS to be shared.

E-Mail v MMS-Which is better?

When it comes to sending images, such as photographs from you to a friend via your phone there is 2 very different methods that we've looked at. Firstly we looked at sending MMS messages and more recently we've looked at sending E-mails with attachments, but which is better and why?

MMS The Pros

1. Easy-It really is just a matter of clicking attach then adding the item you want to send.
2. Direction-It goes directly to your contacts phone meaning they will get it and will likely have their phone on them.
3. "Snap and Go"-You can literally take a picture and send it with in seconds

MMS The Cons

1. Cost-Unless you have a free MMS allowance they can cost quite a bit to send, anywhere into the 35p range which adds up.
2. Limitations of Receiver-Although most phones can now receive MMS some older phones can't and those new phone which don't have packet data on won't receive them either. 
3. Limitations of Sender-MMS messages typically have a limitation in size and will often only allow 1 or 2 pictures per message.

E-Mail The Pros

1. Simple-Although not as simple as sending via MMS it's still very easy and if you follow the guide on this blog you really will never struggle with them.
2. Open Receiver-Everyone has an E-mail address as long as you know it you can send the message and know it will get to them.
3. Price-This is completely free if you have either a wi-fi connection or a mobile internet allowance which most people do have.
4. The limits have been lifted-Rather than only being able to send 1 or 2 images per messages you can actually send quite a few by e-mail at once.

E-Mail The Cons

1. Return to Sender-You need to make sure you have the right address or the E-mail will fail.
2. Time to Receive-Not everyone has access to their E-mails on their phone and may need to wait to access a PC/Laptop to actually see the image.
3. New v Old-Whilst it's very easy to do on things like the Samsung Galaxy S2 it's not as easy to do on older phones like a Sony Ericsson C902.

So now the moment of truth, which is better?
Personally I'd tend to use the E-mail system whenever possible. The people I'd be sending images and things to are contacts I have the e-mail address for as well as phone numbers. Personally I think it's a bit pricey to be paying 30p a message (even though I do have an MMS allowance on one of my contracts) and I know at least 2 mobile contacts have packet data turned off anyway.

For some however, mainly those with perhaps older phones it'll likely be easier to pay the 30p or so to send the MMS rather than struggle through and send an attachment to an e-mail via logging in with the browsers that were used on the older phones. At heart though it's a personal choice, and one that could perhaps be avoided by sending them at home via something like an IM client. Personally I'd side with E-mail though it's not suited to everyone.

How to add attachments to e-mails with the Samsung Galaxy S2

We recently looked at how to send MMS messages with the Samsung Galaxy S2 to share your pictures with a friend, an alternative option is sending them the image by E-mail using either Mobile Internet or Wi-Fi. We're only going to be looking at doing it via the Gmail system (click on the Gmail icon on your phone to access this) which should open something similar to the image on the right side of page you can see). If you press he phones menu button you can open up the small menu at the bottom of the phone and from that you need to click compose.

The compose screen looks a little bit like this, though again you need to press the "menu" button to open up the small selection of options at the bottom. Here you need to press on the "Attach" option which will then allow you to add images or anything else you would like to send.

When attached you should add your subject, your recipient and any text you wish to add (looking something like the image to the right) before pressing on the "Send" icon at the top of the screen. The send icon is the one with an envelope (the one with a floppy Disk is the draft option). The actual writing of an e-mail is easy and your contacts are easy to sync with your e-mail account or even your facebook account.

The advantage of sending E-mails instead of MMS will be looked at shortly in our next piece.

How to send an MMS (or Picture Messages) from your Samsung Galaxy S2

With the help of the Samsung Galaxy S2's excellent camera we've all managed to take a photograph we want to share with a friend. With the help of our contract we may even have a free MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) allowance and want to use that, though how do we send MMS with the Samsung Galaxy S2? How do we use the phone to send picture messages?

Firstly open up your "messaging" option and then on the icon and then either select a conversation (with the person you want to send the text to) or select the new text option to get a screen that looks a little like the one you can see to the right. The part you need to concentrate on here is the little "paperclip" icon. This is the icon that, for anyone who uses E-mail should look familiar, it is after all the "attach" icon and will allow you to attach things like pictures, sounds or videos.

 After clicking on the attach icon you will open up a long list of possible things you might want to attach (as seen on the left here). If it's a picture you've taken you click on "Pictures", if it's one you are about to take click on "Capture picture" of course if it's not a picture then select one of the other options. When you've selected a picture you will be taken back to the text screen to add some textual content and select a contact.

When you've completed adding what ever text and media you wish to send you merely need to click on send and the contact should get the message inside a few seconds.

Alternatively if you've not got an MMS allowance or so many free picture messages a month you could instead send the image by e-mail via either mobile internet or Wi-Fi if you have the contacts E-mail address. We'll be showing how to do that soon.