Yeah, hi, look, I know it's been a while since I've rapped at ya. First, the iPhone 3.0 software came out, and all that paste made my buttons stick. Then the iPhone 3GS was released, and I spent a while hiding in the bathroom feeling inadequate about my lack of built-in compass. And AT&T doesn't exactly make it easy for me to get a signal, and you know how useless phones can be without a DECENT SIGNAL FROM A NETWORK THAT WORKS. Ahem. Sorry about that. Anyway, I'm back now, so let's talk.

AT&T said we'd be able to send MMS messages on its network by late summer. Labor Day is Monday, my kid has been back in school for a week, and we're down to our last box of Mr. Freeze treats. What's the big holdup?

AT&T finally released a statement today saying we'll have MMS capabilities on September 25. Which is not late summer, it's early fall. Or early spring for our South American friends -- ¡Hola a Jerónimo en Colombia! -- but they aren't stuck with AT&T, plus they have sugar cars.

So obviously AT&T are a bunch of liars, but hopefully they'll come through and "deliver." It's pretty well known that iPhone owners are mad at AT&T for being so very craptacular, and all I can really say is, I am glad I don't work for them.

Gee whiz it's hard for me to get a signal. And sometimes I don't get my voicemails for a whole day. How sucky is that?

Yes. I know. It sucks.

I'm just guessing here, but perhaps you live in the San Francisco or New York metro areas, home to perhaps 20 percent of iPhone-owning Americans. I wonder this because those are the places AT&T's 3G "notwork" is most heavily burdened by all your tapping and swiping and using the data plan you're required to pay dearly for each and every month.

Look, I was hanging out with the Mac|Life staff recently, and as usual, they were complaining. Whine, whine, whine these people, it's impossible to get them to shaddup about their lack-of-service woes. Ooh, I wasn't invited to the protest of capitalism and brassieres over at Sean Penn's house because the text message didn't arrive in time! Boo hoo.

Still, floating in the reflecting pool of fine whine, I found bobbing a few nuggets of wisdom: If you're truly fed up, call AT&T and complain. Tell them you want a credit on your account because you feel that you aren't getting the service you pay for. Various unnamed staff members and hangers-on have done so and received credits from $4 (FOUR!?!? Yes, four) to $50 just for being persistently cantankerous yet mostly polite-ish. Give it a try. If you can get your phone to work.

Did AT&T ever mention tethering? People in other countries can do tethering, you know.

People in other countries have sugar cars! No, AT&T did not mention official tethering. They don't even want you to play tetherball; you might get too many ideas.

The new Spotlight feature in iPhone 3.0 is pretty great. But I want to use it mostly as an app launcher, and the top result is usually an email. Can I reorder those results?

Yup. It's just a little hidden. Go to Settings > General > Home > Search Results. Uncheck any items you want to exclude from the search results, and/or slide them into a new order. See how awesome the iPhone is when you aren't trying to send or receive communications over the cellular network?

Pose your iPhone-related and/or philosophical quandries at askaniphone@gmail.com. You can also follow Salty on Twitter twitter.com/SaltyTheiPhone.