I was just trying to send a picture to myself to edit out the phone number from the display on my office phone (you’ll see it here in a minute), and I swear Sprint has the most convoluted mobile picture system in the US.  When you send a picture message to a mobile number or email, the recipient doesn’t get your image as an attachment, they have to go on the Sprint website and are presented the image in a slideshow (with multiple "buy prints" links).  To download the image, you have to exit the slideshow and click an unlabeled dropdown menu.  I consider myself to be pretty damn competent figuring out interfaces (on average I try 3 new websites or applications a day), so if it takes me more than 60 seconds to figure out how to perform a simple task, there is something grievously wrong.

This is such a shame since it ruins the flow their almost perfect text messaging application and makes it hell for developers to work with their system.  C’mon Sprint, stop forcing your monetization scheme on users as a value add and give us a system that just works.

About the author: Lisa Brewster is a project manager and startup advisor in San Diego, CA. Subscribe to this blog by RSS or email, or follow me on Twitter for more updates.