By default, your iPhone won’t be able to utilize MMS if it is on the StraightTalk network. That’s because of the internal settings on the phone which are pre-set to work with the carriers other than StraightTalk. There is also a proxy field that needs to be hard coded with an IP.

All of the discussions I’ve seen on this subject involve either swapping a pre-paid T-Mobile sim card or else purchasing the TetherMe app for $4.99 if you are jailbroken. In fact this is pretty much the only solution I’ve seen for jailbroken iPhones to get picture MMS working. The other method on the wiki is outdated as of this writing. I set out to discover a better way that was current for the 5.1.1 jailbreak.

I am pleased to reveal that such a way exists. No sim swapping, no paying for TetherMe. This can be achieved completely with free apps too.

But first, the requirement is to jailbreak your iPhone. If your iPhone is not jailbroken, you can follow this very tedious method which requires a full backup and restoring of your iPhone. At least it’s free.

If you want to jailbreak, I highly suggest it. Right now, the absinthe tool will jailbreak iOS 5.1.1 so simply upgrade your iPhone to the latest 5.1.1 firmware and be sure to back it up. Then simply download and run absinthe, hit the “Jailbreak” button, and you’re done!

Now that you are this far, this means you are jailbroken and too stingy to pay $4.99 for the TetherMe app. Don’t worry, so am I! Really all that is required to enable MMS is to update the fields of two .plist files on your iPhone. Since non-jailbroken phones will not allow you access to the file system, that is the reason why the process is so tedious for non-jailbroken folks. They have to extract the files from the iPhone back up file, edit them, and restore them back onto the phones.

For jailbroken folks, it’s much easier. I like to use iPhoneBrowser, but i-FunBox and a few others will work too. These programs will allow direct access to the file system so you can download, edit, and replace files without doing a full phone restore.

Connect your iPhone, launch iPhoneBrowser and save these two files:

1. [root]/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
2. [root]/private/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mms_override.plist

Simply navigate to each file, right click it and “Save As…” to a location of your choosing.

Next you will have to edit these two files. Since a .plist file by itself is a binary format and not text, you will need a special editor to read and edit the file. This is where you use plist Editor instead of iBackupBot by the same software maker from the tedious solution I mentioned above. This process is much faster and easier and best of all free.

In preferences.plist, change all instances of “wap.cingular” to “att.mvno” as recommended by StraightTalk like so. A simple search and replace will work here.

In com.apple.mms_override.plist, simply replace it with the following, which will hard code the IP address of the proxy:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>MMS</key>
	<dict>
		<key>Proxy</key>
		<string>66.209.11.33:80</string>
	</dict>
</dict>
</plist>

After saving both files, go back to iPhoneBrowser and browse to the two files on your phone again. Right click on each one and this time select “Replace File…” and browse to your new, edited plist files to replace them.

Turn your iPhone on and off for the changes to take effect. To test MMS picture messaging, try sending a picture to a friend via text. Make sure your friend isn’t also on iPhone and using iMessage as this uses data and not MMS. You can alternatively try texting to an email address in the “To” field.

Congratulations, you’ve saved yourself some time by not having to restore your iPhone from a backup as well as $4.99 on the TetherMe app. Now, back to sexting! I mean texting!