Well, I don't have any solutions for you but I can commiserate. I too have been underwhelmed by Samsung's software. The hardware is great but the software leaves much to be desired. I chose the S4 over the HTC One because it has a removable SD card and battery. Otherwise the One is probably a better unit as far as software goes.

But the bright light is in rooting the device. Hopefully there will be some good ROMs coming out soon to alleviate the deficient software. And maybe Samsungs next software update will fix many of these issues.

As for the S4 fans who can't stand to have their device of choice criticized...flame away! :evil:

 

ive never had a problem with mms unless im in an area where i have poor data. otherwise my messages send pretty much immediately

 

Do you guys that are having problems with the s4 have the roaming auto retrieve checked in the mms settings and I forgot where the dude in the store went and checked some GPS setting that help push the mms faster . But take it back and the store will get it up for u cause customer service play the game with u . .. but it will work faster the downsizing of photos to make mms will take a minute that is a software problem

 

Mine used to send very quickly now they never send. I'm not sure what happened but any advice would be welcome.

 

I have no problems. Then again I'm always connected to wifi so maybe that affects it

 

I can't answer as to how the interface acts with doing multiple pictures, being clunky, etc. But there is one aspect that I'm not sure if you know (jlandry definitely doesn't). With your iPhone, if you were on wifi and sending to another iPhone, it didn't actually go through MMS (multimedia messaging service), it went through iMessages. So depending on how good your data signal is on the S4, it might have been faster over wifi. Even just comparing on data signal on both phones, the MMS protocol is old and (IMO) clunky. So I would think it's going to upload slower than the iMessages protocol.

MMS cannot go through wifi, so being on it versus not won't make any difference, jlandry. Though some Android phones have a problem of switching over while connected to wifi and sending an MMS. And they will just stay on "sending" until you turn off wifi or leave the wifi area. But that is just a software bug, and doesn't mean that wifi can handle the MMS protocol.

 

I'm not sure why anyone chooses to use MMS these days. My carrier charges for sending them so I just use Viber. There's not one contact in my phone that's doesn't use it and its free.

 

MMS is free for me (VZW) and my wife/kid (Sprint).

 

Because it's free. Sprint is unlimited everything (albeit at the speed of molasses).

 

Apologies guys, didn't realise MMS was included in US bundles. My plan includes unlimited everything apart from MMS which my carrier charges 25 pence for each one

 

Stopped in at VZW store ... they want me to hard reset the phone ... >sigh<

 

Hard resets always suck. It doesn't cost Verizon anything so they usually recommend this step for troubleshooting. On the other hand...it does fix a lot of problems.

But my guess is this won't help. I've had problems with MMS since day one and I tried a hard reset to try fixing a number of issues but it didn't help. I'm on Sprint. I still contend that it's Samsung's crappy software. Hopefully I'm wrong and a reset will set you straight.

 

Yeah, it's only been in the past year or two, but pretty much all postpaid plans in the US now include unlimited messaging, with no distinction between SMS and MMS.

 

if the ******** had bothered to look up my account he would have seen that my account had a MMS block put on it on 6/21. After the hard reset failed I called support and they told me about the block. I was able to work my way through the corporate support and get it removed. Why was I blocked??? VZW support said "ooops ... looks like a mistake" ... >sigh<

 

I remember when we had it in the UK...used to take like 4 SMS out of your allowance...now they are chargeable

 

The stock GS4 ROM has issues with the message app FC'ing. Samsung sent an update to carriers for distro. Sprint is pushing out MF9 now, which fixes the message app FC issue. Not sure if your MMS issue is being effected by the message app issue or not.

 

Turn off wife when trying to download mms files, mms cannot be downloaded through wifi the phones automatically use wifi if avaliable . Hope this helps op.

 

I tried turning my wife off but she just got annoyed .

 

I'm sure it was a typo, but it's a good one! Freudian slip?