iMessage attachment limitations

[5t3f4n]

I received a bunch of animated GIF files through iMessage recently, and I noticed one "didn't work".
I saved it to my Dropbox and viewed it on my computer.
The filetype was now suddenly JPEG and all but one frame were stripped.
On the sender's end, though, it was still in its original, working GIF format even after being delivered.
So I guess there's some compression going on "in the cloud".

We also tried sending a regular photo from the built-in camera app, and it came through at 1152x860 pixels and 440kb.
Too small both in resolution and size for an iPhone 4 rear-camera photo.

After some trial-and-error by sending various sized images back and forth, I think the max file size before compression is 500kb.

What other (if any) limitations are there to attachments in iMessage?
Do they only apply if you are on 3G or also on Wi-Fi for example?
And lastly, is it possible to bypass the compression?

 

[PNutts]

I send attachments larger than that with no issues. If only one didn't work then I doubt there is anything global going on with iMessage.

 

[5t3f4n]

I send attachments larger than that with no issues. If only one didn't work then I doubt there is anything global going on with iMessage.

If you read the entire post you would see that sending isn't the issue at all.
It's that the file you send isn't what they receive.
Every image over ~500kb arrived compressed on the receiver's end.

Few people would probably even notice that a photo has been downscaled to, say, 1152x860 (like in my testing)
and therefore not inform the sender who is none the wiser, because it appears original on his or her end.

It would be great if it let you choose small/medium/large/original like Mail does.

 

[PNutts]

No issues means mine are sent and received without the issue you described. 2.61 MB photo sent and 2.61 MB photo received (wi-fi). If you are clearer in your use case you might get better responses.