AT&T has clearly been engaged in some tomfoolery over the past few days.  Message boards across the internet have been lighting up with scattered reports of US-based iPhone users suddenly being able to send and receive picture messages.  The reports of the feature being officially turned on by AT&T range from Rhode Island to California, but as of now, there doesn't seem to be a set pattern in regards to individual market rollouts.  The prevailing theory behind the random enabling is that AT&T is slowly removing the opt-out codes that were placed on iPhone accounts as a result of OS 3.0 (which makes sense, since OS 3.0 introduced native MMS).  AT&T took the time to send AppScout the following statement:

"We can't confirm these reports but as we've said before, we've been working for months to prepare for this launch and remain on track to complete this process by September 25. The service will be enabled with a software update on the launch date.  Customers can obtain the update from iTunes, just like all other iPhone updates."

For those that have freely received the update, congratulations!  Those that don't want to wait can go here to perform a semi-hack on their phone to enable the feature (though we're not responsible for any damage to your phone).

(Original image can be found here)