AT&T: MMS for iPhone finally set for Sept. 25

After a barrage of criticism, AT&T ends the months-long guessing game and announces a launch date for picture messaging on the iPhone 3GS and 3G, a few days after its self-imposed deadline. Still no word on tethering, though.

Through its Twitter account and on its Web site, AT&T says that MMS functionality will finally arrive on the iPhone on September 25—a few days after the "later this summer" deadline that the carrier initially promised—through a "software update," presumably iPhone Software 3.1.

The news comes on the same day as this blistering article in the New York Times, which describes the "dropped calls, spotty service, delayed text and voice messages and glacial download speeds" that iPhone users have dealt with thanks to AT&T's overloaded network.

In its statement, AT&T said the "unique capabilities and high usage of the iPhones multimedia capabilities required us to work on our network MMS architecture to carry the expected record volumes of MMS traffic and endure an excellent experience from Day One ... we appreciate your patience as we work toward that end."

iPhone 3G and 3GS users in other countries have been enjoying MMS service—as well as laptop tethering, for that matter—for months now, but at the time of the iPhone 3GS launch back in June, AT&T said it wouldn't have MMS ready for its subscribers until "later this summer." For the record, the last of summer is September 22.

MMS (short for "Multimedia Messaging Service") let you send both images and video snippets along with text. AT&T says that each MMS message you send will count against the remaining text messages in your monthly allotment.

Meanwhile, today's AT&T announcement had no word on laptop tethering, a feature that lets you share the iPhone's broadband data connection with a notebook. Again, iPhone users in other countries already have this feature, but an AT&T rep told me in June that while the carrier does "plan to offer a tethering plan, we don't have announcement to make at this time."

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