Back in the day, Steve Jobs whipped a Macworld Keynote audience into a frenzy by announcing the iPhone. Removed from the reality distortion field, people began to wonder about the strategy that Apple was pursuing. Originally, apps on the iPhone were a no-no. Steve pontificated the wonder of web-based applications, like Facebook and Flickr; the iPhone’s killer apps were to be accessed via Safari. This was an interesting, and obviously ill-fated strategy, but several events lately set me to thinking…

Today is the day when AT&T promised that the US based 3G and 3GS iPhones would finally be able to use MMS and join the ranks of just about every other cell phone in the universe. So, when I plugged in my iPhone to sync this afternoon, I was a little concerned that the sync completed and nothing seemed to be different. When I clicked “Check for Update” I was greeted with a message telling me there was an update to my carrier settings. I told it to update my settings and the update was over in a second, literally.

A lucky few already have MMS on the iPhone, but the rest of us have been waiting for a while now as other carriers have managed to push it out on their network. As per the AT&T announcement a while back, this Friday, September 25th will be the official date that this feature is released via a software update. That is coming up quickly, and AT&T has released some information on their Facebook page.

Per AT&T’s official statement, iPhone MMS wasn’t supposed to arrive until September 25th. However, it appears as if AT&T may be releasing that feature early for some users who have reported they can already use it. While it seems strange that some people would get it and not others, my only complaint is that I’m one of the people who hasn’t!

This week brought the news that the multimedia messaging service (MMS) will be available on the iPhone for AT&T customers September 25. One of their reasons for the delay was to ensure that their network is ready for the immediate increase in traffic that will come as a result of activating MMS for iPhone customers. But the question remains; has this extra time been enough for AT&T to ensure a solid system from day one?

Yesterday, we wrote that an AT&T employee had leaked that iPhone OS 3.1 would be released in September. Today, AT&T released a press release stating that the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) will be coming to the iPhone on AT&T on September 25th. The service will become active through a software update for the iPhone, which will most likely be iPhone OS 3.1.

Apple has officially released iPhone OS 3.0. The software upgrade is available through iTunes for free for iPhone owners, and $9.95 for owners of the iPod touch. This update includes some of the features that many felt should have been part of the initial iPhone rollout, including cut, copy & paste, a landscape keyboard, and MMS functionality, but brings plenty of new and enhanced features, as well.

MMS and Tethering, on iPhone, on AT&T…later…this…summer. I couldn’t help but laugh, and I know I wasn’t the only one. Funny how a large number of carriers in other countries can manage to support both MMS and tethering on iPhone 3GS launch day, but AT&T just can’t pull it together quite yet. No one really knows just when “later this summer” really is, but at least one other question was left unanswered. How much will this all cost?

Today’s iPhone OS 3.0 preview was quite the show. Apple almost outdid themselves by catching up on all standard features of regular cell phones, and then some. Amongst today’s biggest features were items such as Copy and Paste, Push Notifications, Turn by turn GPS and MMS. But that’s not all, Apple states there are well over 100 new features or improvements to be experienced in iPhone OS 3.0 coming this June, so let’s take a look at what’s in store.

Proving that only Apple can take a feature that everyone else has and turn it into a product announcement, Apple today announced that the iPhone 3G would support MMS when the 3.0 software becomes available in the summer. MMS will enable users to send text messages that also include pictures, audio, maps, and contact information. MMS is already available on most cell phones and mobile devices, especially those with embedded cameras.