Flickr, Moblogging and avoiding using T-Mobile UK's MMS service to moblog

I am genuinely a fan of mobile technology.  A serious fan.  I get no end of pleasure sitting in a pub with my vodafone 3g card-enabled laptop, or checking my email on the train.  It occurs to me that I have of late been overly critical. 

I just can’t help it though.  I’m trying to be ‘fair and balanced’. 

This evening, if you recall, my neither of my friends MMS worked.  I said, "Ah, let me demonstrate".  I took a picture on my T-Mobile MDA Pro and walked the girls through sending an MMS.

I normally send pictures via email to Flickr instead of MMS since MMS has historically been a pain in the arse… and I’d rather use up my data allowance than pay a fixed fee. 

I type in my special flickr-to-blog email address as the "to" field.

… "and it’s that easy," I say, as I finish the demonstration. 

I then take another rather boring picture and this time I email it instead of using MMS. 

Let’s fast forward to me getting home.

Here’s what I find on my personal blog:

The image on top is the one I sent via email to Flickr, which duly wrapped the image on to the blog with a bit of text.  As expected. No problem. Note the comfy pub atmosphere.

See the one before though (below)?  Maximise the image and take a look.  That’s my MMS!

I log into Flickr and I’m met with this:

What is that, I wonder?  It’s a T-Mobile advert of some kind?

So I click on it to enlarge it:

It’s a full size image!  Geez it’s big!  It’s telling me I have a new picture message.

Yes, well where is the actual picture?

Nowhere. 

That’s because T-Mobile, like most other operators, does that ridiculous packaging of MMS messages.  You routinely have to click on the notification email, fill in your mobile number or something — or if you’re lucky — you click and after the operator’s system has done some processing, the image will appear. 

All through the web.

The image is NOT sent as an attachment. Instead it sends the "You’ve got a picture message" image as the attachment which Flickr (naturally) processes.  Flickr doesn’t go and get the image from T-Mobile’s legacy website.

The net result? I’ve paid my cash and got zero service.

Of course, it’s my fault for not understanding that sending an MMS and trying to moblog doesn’t work if you’re using T-Mobile and one of the world’s biggest picture sites, Flickr.  It DOES work if you’re a 3 customer but only if you’re texting the MMS to the 3 moblog service.

So, if in doubt, be sure to send your pictures as email attachments like normal, OK?