AT&T on Thursday announced on its Facebook page that starting Friday it will finally be offering iPhone users much-delayed MMS functionality, allowing them to send and receive multimedia messages.

This basic feature found on many handsets had been missing from Apple's smart phone despite growing criticism from unsatisfied iPhone users.

AT&T wrote on its Facebook page that Friday afternoon would be the time "to fire up iTunes and connect your iPhone," as users need to download a new carrier profile and sync their iPhone to have the MMS option on their devices. 

The MMS feature, which allows the sending of photos, videos, and audio files, was introduced by Apple back in June, but AT&T was late to update its infrastructures although other carriers around the world had started offering this capability.