The Free Thinker

Is it just me, or does picture messaging almost never work?

For a long time, I've had virtually no use for it. After all, I was carrying around a T616 which is a first-gen camera phone that is completely useless. If you have direct sunlight on the fourth Sunday of the month during the year of the donkey you might be able to get a usable low-res picture. Might.

But now I have a very nice 2 megapixel phone. I even grabbed a flash attachment off of eBay. This thing takes decent pictures. So once in a while, I figure it's fun to send a funny picture to someone.

Last weekend at the club I took a pretty funny (and highly sketchy) picture of myself with the bathroom attendant. I sent it to three people and none of them got it. Something always goes wrong.

I have no trouble sending. Which is great, because that's the part they charge you for. But half the time the recipient doesn't get anything, or they get a notice saying they have a picture message and they can't pick it up. Or something else goes wrong.

I'm not doing anything esoteric here. I'm sending a picture message, a feature that's been on phones for three or four years now, from my stock Rogers phone to my friend's stock Rogers phone. I figure by now I've paid out four or five bucks for photos that went into oblivion. It's right in that sweet spot where it's not enough to be worth complaining about, but still enough to bug the crap out of you.

This should just work. Is it any wonder this hasn't gotten off the ground yet? Look how long it took text messaging to really pick up, and that's about 45 times more reliable. If a communication channel doesn't work at least 99% of the time it's virtually useless. Do you have to phone someone every time you send an email to make sure they got it? No, but I have to text my friends whenever I send a picture message.

I'd send Rogers a photo of my ass and ask them to kiss it, but that'd probably be another 50¢ down the toilet

Image courtesy of Seth W.