Multimedia "texts" are actually MMS. In fact, if you send more than 160 characters, those are also MMS because it's an extension of the SMS standard. https://e

Multimedia "texts" are actually MMS. In fact, if you send more than 160 characters, those are also MMS because it's an extension of the SMS standard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Messaging_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Messaging_Service It is not unusual for there to be hosting or intermediate storage of images and other files, and from the phone you may tap a link or something to download/access that file, instead of having it automatically download and appear immediately, due to bandwidth and resource constraints.