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Over two years ago a BestMVNO site reader informed me that they were locked out of the part of their iPhone's settings menu that would allow them to setup an APN. They noticed that the issue occurred when they tried to use a SIM card for an AT&T MVNO, but it did not happen when they inserted the same SIM card into an Android phone. For those of you who don't know, when you don't have the right APN setting for your phone, you can't do such things as connect to the internet or even send or receive MMS picture messages. So in essence, you aren't able to get what you pay for.
At that time it was not known why this was happening. I speculated that perhaps Apple had some sort of agreement with AT&T to try and push customers towards service with AT&T directly or with specific AT&T MVNO's that may have been more profitable for AT&T. I had also wondered if there was no agreement at all, and perhaps Apple just wanted AT&T to pay up to unlock the settings profile for its customers. I reached out to both companies for comment, and never heard back from either.
Yesterday, that same reader from a few years ago pointed out to me a specific comment that AT&T MVNO H2O wireless recently made in a forum in regards to recent changes they had made to try and fix some long known issues.
One such issue was that the company was finally able to get conditional call forwarding working. This is something that likely only impacted a minimal amount of subscribers. The real "cat out of the bag" moment came however when H2O Wireless left this curious message:
iPhone MMS (Pending) - Currently in negotiations with Apple.
Currently in negotiations with Apple?
What???
While we don't know for sure exactly what that means, Apple has a long track record of milking everyone and everything out of every last cent that it possibly can. Take what it did with Spotify for instance. Apple charged Spotify subscribers who signed up for the service through iTunes $12.99/month whereas if the subscriber signed up directly from Spotify, they'd only pay $9.99/month. It wasn't just Spotify that Apple did this to, Tidal also faced the same problem. This all stems from the fact that Apple charges a 30% commission on all in-app purchases made through the iTunes/app store.
So based on that statement from H2O Wireless and Apple's track record, it does appear that Apple may be charging at least some MVNO's or carriers for the "privilege" of having access to the iOS settings menu that allows them to configure an APN. This would explain why many AT&T MVNO's still don't have MMS working with Apple, because they won't pay to play. If this is in fact the case, I say good for them for not caving into Apple. Of course at the same time, it must be hard for them to not be able to service that potential customer base.
There could of course be other reasons that are not financially based as to why Apple still has the settings menu locked down for many AT&T MVNO's, although they are certainly hard to imagine.
(Updated: 7/20/2017)- A recent comment left by someone who says that they are an employee of another AT&T MVNO, has stated that Apple wanted them to purchase a large number of iPhones priced in the low seven figure range in exchange for providing the correct APN settings to the MVNO's iPhone using customer base. Even with the agreement in place, iPhone users on iOS 9 or below would still be unable to receive MMS!
What makes this whole thing even more ridiculous if true, is that this happens with UNLOCKED iPhones!! How is it even legal to sell a device as being "unlocked" when it can't really be used on all carriers because it is in fact partially locked down?
i see the point that is trying to be made but it misses things. it comes from the perspective of google is good and apple is bad, when in fact they are just different approaches. apple keeps control over apn settings, whoop de doo. apple also had imessage that is different than sms, and they can unlock devices via updates pushed to the phone and since those things are not magic, it seems pretty clear that they want to retain control over apn settings.
by all means by a non apple device if this is upsetting to you, but to hate them over is just silly and a waste of your time.
also that $12.99 vs $9.99 spotify crack is just stupid. spotify set that price on itunes to cover fees… they could have eaten those fees as being in the apple store means access to lots of customers and less marketing and less accounting for them… but spotifiy decided to just pass it along to apple customers… and spotify, being embarrassed after having done it, removed it from the apple store back in 2016… yet people are still talking about it a year later, lol
It looks like the issue is not limited to ATT MVNOs. Recently some cheaper T-Mobile MVNOs and former Srpint MVNOs seem to have the same exact issue. Tello announced after switching to T-Mobile that iOS users suddenly did not have access to certain features and users on Hello Mobile complain about many of those features not working on iOS. (Though some report not getting 5G or LTE as well using iOS on Hello Mobile. Apprently if you use the PWG SIM from HM, PWG seems to work – but HM branded SIMs don’t work.)
Just another example of why I don’t buy Apple products.
You also used to be able to make your own APN certificates. https://www.imore.com/manually-set-iphone-ipad-carrier-apn-iphone-configuration-utility
This is exactly why I have never purchased an Apple product and I never, ever will.
H2O service team told me that the only way for me to get to the APN settings on my iphone was to jailbreak it. Jail breaking makes the i-phone accessible to hackers more easily. I decided NOT to jailbreak the i-phone so I don’t use MMS. It’s frustrating to buy an unlocked phone that, in reality, is locked to the APN settings. You can access data by using “unlockit apn settings” thru the Australian company by adding the PRODATA addon to your i-phone. My next phone will not be Apple until they decided to play fair with their customers.
This was an informative article. I have been looking at forums and searching articles for over a year to try and learn what was at the root of this seemingly unanswerable question . I did read one writer who said money might be at the heart of the matter. His requests for clarity went unanswered by both ATT and the Apple.
I went with puretalk for a month and switched back to a tmob mvno over the mms issue .
Never would have bought an iphone except that their iphone se kept a small frame with newer os. my old galaxy exhibit ii worked fine but was out dated . If any one will build a new small smartphone I will gladly leave the apple behind .Never would have tried puretalk either if they had been upfront about the apn blocking .
Thank you so much for this great article…I have spent hours online researching this subject, with very little success. I currently have a Blackberry Q10 on AT&T prepaid (previously postpaid), that works perfectly. However, I want to move to an AT&T MVNO for the better rates…and here is where it gets interesting. And maddening! I bought a new Blackberry Z30 last month, and decided to take advantage of Pure Talk USA’s free month offer…it was a great way to try out the carrier and my new phone at the same time! Both have exceeded my very high expectations!
My BB Z30 works perfectly with Pure Talk…with one exception. No mms! It isn’t a matter of not having the proper settings, I have those. The problem is there is no way to enter them into the phone…that area is not there. Only the basic APN settings area is available, mms is not. As I said before, everything else works beautifully….talk…data…email…regular texting, both ways, everything. But I can’t send or receive a picture text!! From what I have learned so far in my research, I am convinced that it is AT&T’s fault.
I am limited to AT&T MVNO’s, because I live in a rural area, and there are AT&T towers only a mile from my home. However, my BB Z30 on Pure Talk gets much better signal strength than my Q10 that is on AT&T prepaid…both on wi-fi and data. I am going to port my number over to Pure Talk by the end of the month, and close my AT&T account…even though the mms problem is huge for me. I still hope for a solution, a workaround…something. I think the root of the issue is AT&T blocking the settings, and as someone else said, maybe a class action lawsuit will force them to do the right thing! Thank you again for this article…please keep us updated on this problem that is hurting so many people. I love your website,it is great!
Getting an agreement with Apple to obtain carrier settings may or may not require a monetary payment/agreement just for the settings alone. I am an employee of another AT&T MVNO and we were in the same boat as H2O until we one day had an agreement in place with Apple.
I’m not sure what the exact details of the agreement are, but I do know it involved our company taking on a lot of iPhones (at full price) that are not easy to sell at full price. Even with third party financing available, we still found it difficult to move iPhones without substantial discounts (promos) in place.
The only thing I am certain of is, this “agreement” required us taking on a large amount of iPhones over time, rumored to be in the low seven figure range, to fulfill our agreement.
We did receive the carrier settings (the APN’s actually used are the same used for other MVNO’s, not exclusive to the iPhone) with a minimum iOS version if 9.0, so customers on the iPhone 4 or lower were left to not receive MMS.
The issue is fairly similar to the requirement BlackBerry had on BB OS. Carriers had to have an agreement in place (unsure if monetary or not as we didn’t investigate) in order to receive access to BlackBerry’s APN settings.