How to send a full-length, full-quality video [and pics] on your iPhone without MMS
Sending a video with iPhone via MMS has a size limit & ruins the quality. Even pictures are compressed as well. I’m going to explain how you can get around these limitations using an online service called called Dropbox. Dropbox has WAY more uses than what I’m going to cover here, so do yourself a favor and look into all of it’s other features later on as well.
Here’s how -
Install the DropBox iPhone app from the AppStore and setup a membership if you are new to Dropbox. You can setup a new membership on your iPhone or on your computer. The iPhone app and the membership are completely free.
In the DropBox iPhone app, make sure your upload quality settings are at ‘Original’ in the Settings tab. Then tap on the ‘Uploads’ tab and tap on the top right button with the + on it. Choose a video to upload.
Once your video is finished uploading, tap on it and it will begin to auto-play. Now just tap the lower right button that looks like a chain and it will ask you how you’d like to share the link. You can email the link or you can copy the link to your iPhone’s clipboard.
The emailing route is pretty self-explanatory. If you choose to copy the link to your clipboard, then you have many different routes you can go. You can paste it into somewhere like in a text message or on the web somewhere for all to see!
The key here is that the video will be playable on an iPhone or computer right away via a web browser; and it will be uncompressed and as long as you like (provided you have the room on your Dropbox account). It’ll also be relatively easy to download on a computer if you like.
There are no advertisements on the video page either. Links generated this way will expire in one month (I believe), but the video will remain in your Dropbox until you delete it which can be done from the iPhone app. Sharing this same video again this same way would be much faster due to the unnecessary uploading process the second time.
The ONLY limitation to the free Dropbox membership is a storage limit of 2 gigabytes. But if you look into it, you’ll find that there’s a way to raise that limit to 5 gigabytes (free as well). Alternatively, there are paid plans for 50 GB & 100 GB. I’ll end it there though because that’s not the focus here.
UPDATE: iOS 5 will be released this fall and it will introduce an improved Messages app. I wonder if it will allow for original quality uploads. What do you think?
