Updated: Email from Jobs on iPhone calling problems a “hoax,” says Apple
Updated: VentureBeat says the emails were a hoax. Boy Genius Report has posted extensive headers. The last exchange actually came from “Tom,” if the emails are to be believed.
Poor Steve Jobs can’t have one curt conversation with a disgruntled iPhone 4 customer without it getting splashed all over tech blogs, can he?
While Apple continues to contend that the iPhone 4 signal problems are not really iPhone 4 signal problems, angry first-in line buyers are reporting frustrating exchanges of e-mails with the black turtlenecked CEO. Boy Genius Report has the scoop again, and this time Jobs sends a second reply to a customer telling the man to “retire, relax, (and) enjoy (his) family,” and says the device is “just a phone.” Interestingly, Apple originally reached out to the man, who BGR refers to as “Tom,” due to a YouTube video he made showcasing the phone’s issues. Tom replied:
[Apple engineer name redacted],
When we spoke, you would not tell me that there is a fix for this phone?
A friend just sent me this: http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/06/29/leaked-apples-internal-iphone-4-antenna-troubleshooting-procedures/
I assume there is no fix then. If this is legit, I have lost all respect for apple and just want to go back to Verizon and get a nice Android phone. And don’t tell me they have the same issues, all our co-workers with Androids are just mocking us right now…. “Hey, I am going to go in the basement and continue my call. You can use my office on the 2nd floor so you can get a signal”. You are going to kill your brand over one product. Apple is coming off arrogant and rude. If there is no fix just tell people so they can return their phones. We have work to do. I have bought just about every apple product made in the last 20 years and this is the 1st time I am ashamed to be a MAC fan.
This is just sickening,
[Tom]
Jobs replied concisely:
No, you are getting all worked up over a few days of rumors. Calm down.
To which “Tom” said:
I am really insulted… “Calm down”…. “rumors”… What arrogance. This is will be marked as the begging of the end of Apple. Seriously, DO THE RIGHT THING. I just had dinner with 3 people who had iPhone 4s we all cant make calls without dropping. There is no rumors it is reality.
I would like to imagine that at this point “Tom” turned to his dinner companions and said, “sorry, dude, Steve Jobs keeps emailing me. What were you saying? I heard The Last Airbender sucked, too.” So then Steve is like:
You are most likely in an area with very low signal strength.
And “Tom” is all “oh no, you did NOT.”
Stop with jackass comments. I have has every iphone made. They all had a bad signal but this is the so much worse X3. The whole country is is in a “low signal strength” in reality… all but apple campus and your house it seems? AT&T maps are a joke. I am in “excellent” to “good” coverage and on my iPhone 1, Iphone 3G, and my iPhone 3Gs, I could at least make a telephone call. After all, it is a phone. Iphone 4…. 5 bars….. touch the phone… ZERO bars call drops.
Steve. IT DOES NOT WORK! Geezzz I hope this this is not really you. Are we on a different MHz? I have yet to see an iPhone [4] work in Richmond when you hold it in your hand. It is not “isolated”. I was a big fan. But I am done.
Then Jobs replies twice, first saying:
You may be working from bad data. Not your fault. Stay tuned. We are working on it.
And then… (This was originally labeled incorrectly in the context of the exchange this is supposedly “Tom” commenting.)
Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it.
Topic of the next Apple keynote: “It’s just a phone!”
