Apple PR: Steve Jobs iPhone 4 "conversation" is a fake

[fresh1]

Sup All

On Thurs Apple public relations said


Boy Genius Report
An e-mail exchange being attributed to Steve Jobs is a fake, and was not written by him.

See Post From Fortune..

Apple PR: Steve Jobs iPhone 4 "conversation" is a fake
Posted by Philip Elmer-DeWitt
July 1, 2010 7:14 PM

Apple's CEO did not tell an angry customer "calm down," "retire," "it's just a phone"


Source: Boy Genius Report
An e-mail exchange being attributed to Steve Jobs is a fake, and was not written by him, according to Apple (AAPL) public relations.

The conversation was published Thursday by The Boy Genius Report and linked to by more than three dozen other sites. In it, a writer pretending to be Apple's CEO tries several times to mollify a customer called "Tom" (not his real name) who is furious about the iPhone 4's widely reported signal attenuation problem. In separate e-mail messages Jobs purportedly tells "Tom," who grows angrier with each exchange...

"No, you are getting all worked up over a few days of rumors. Calm down."
"You are most likely in an area with very low signal strength."
"You may be working from bad data. Not your fault. Stay tuned. We are working on it."
"Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it." (In the latest version of the BGR report, this last line is attributed to "Tom.")
Asked on the record whether Steve Jobs was the author of any of these statements, a top Apple spokesman emphatically denied it.

Separately, AppleInsider is reporting that a similar exchange was shopped to them two days earlier by a Virginia man who offered to sell it to them for an unspecified amount of money.

Apple PR: Steve Jobs iPhone 4 "conversation" is a fake - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Tech


Today BGR fires back. Says Apple PR is lying ..


Seth Weintraub| July 03, 2010
BGR reported this week an email chain purportedly between an iPhone 4 customer and SJobs (or whomever answers his emails). It was pretty strong on both sides.

For the first time in memory, Apple PR went on record saying to Fortune and later Engadget (emphasis ours):

"Asked on the record whether Steve Jobs was the author of any of these statements, a top Apple spokesman emphatically denied it."

The headers look pretty legit and Boy Genius was given access to the original leaker's Gmail account where he logged in and confirmed the emails were from the sjobs@apple.com account.

He is claiming that they are legitimate and that the only way that Steve Jobs didn't author them is if Jobs really isn't answering his own emails...which wouldn't be that surprising.

Either way, an interesting story...we'll see if anything else develops.
BGR fires back. Says Apple PR is lying | 9 to 5 Mac



Fresh1

 

[Ipheuria]

I have written Steve three times with no response I guess my emails weren't controversial enough. I think Steve does answer some of the emails but seriously we all know Steve must get thousands of emails a day. So someone must go through the emails to see which ones are worth answering. I guess someone thought they'd have a little fun with the emails who knows.

 

[fresh1]

The entire Steve Jobs email story? It?s real
by Boy Genius on July 3rd, 2010 at 3:10pm



I obviously wanted to be 100% sure about this before I posted a follow up post, but before I go into the details, I?d like you all to know about how we operate over here?
Yes, BGR runs rumors and information that is not always completely confirmed. That is part of the game we are in. What we and other quality sites do is research, confirm, and make our best editorial judgements before running information that is not yet confirmed. Over the past 5 years, I?ve had more exclusives in the mobile field than anyone or any site on the entire planet, and my accuracy rate has been ridiculously high. I?d guess above 95%.
It?s a knack, a gut feeling, a judgment call that you sometimes make when you are sharing valuable information that no one has ever reported on before. There have been countless, and I do mean countless things other fine writers at BGR and I have walked away from entirely. Not ridiculous tips like ?the iPhone 7 has been released on Sprint and you can only buy it at Best Buy?, but rather high quality photos, or videos ? things very hard to fake. And we walk away.
One recent example in memory actually is the Xbox Kinect. We had that exclusive story sent to us as an anonymous tip a day or two before Engadget published it, revealing it to the world. Someone sent to us a photo of the then unheard of motion-controlled Xbox accessory, and lightly detailed it for us. They worked at an ad agency and were filming this promo piece, so they snapped a quick photo and shot it over to us. We couldn?t independently confirm something so amazingly cool like a brand new way to experience and play video games, so we passed on running the story. Since we were the tipster?s favorite site, he sent it to us first, but still wanting to share the information, he sent it to Engadget who then ran the story. We?re not saying Engadget did a poor job from an editorial viewpoint because they might have confirmed the story with a source at Microsoft, but we specifically couldn?t, so we passed. That is just one example of hundreds on how journalists and reporters make decisions on whether to go with a story or not, and it is always better to be safe than sorry. Our reputation isn?t worth a small or large exclusive. There is no reason to burn our readers for a cheap uptick in traffic for a day or two. It is not how I or we operate, and never will be.
On to the Steve Jobs emails.
Jason Burford, someone who we have never worked with in the past, emailed us and said that he had a pretty interesting email conversation with Steve Jobs and wanted to share it with us, but wanted to be compensated. He sent us the email headers and we had some of our independent tech guys verify the email header information and then inform us whether they were legitimate. Their response was yes, that they were legitimate, and that the entire thread would be extremely hard to fake, if not impossible. After speaking with Jason and getting more background, I decided to run that story. There was an error in my write up where the last line in the article was written to be said by Steve Jobs, when in fact it was Jason who emailed that in reply to Steve Jobs.
The last line was a huge mistake on my part. Jason emailed me probably 8 times over the course of an hour. He then started emailing Michael and Andrew to have them get a hold of me to correct that last quote?s attribution to Steve Jobs when it should have been attributed to Jason. His emails were stuck in Postini, my spam filter, and I didn?t get to see them until Michael and Andrew both forwarded me his emails telling us that last line was incorrect. But that still doesn?t change Apple from telling Fortune and Engadget that this exchange wasn?t with Steve Jobs and was fake, right?
Well, I personally couldn?t give a damn if this email was with Steve Jobs himself or not. What I care about is whether this was with Steve Jobs? email box, one that is obviously monitored by a bunch of employees at Apple, either in customer service or PR, or both. So, is it possible that Steve Jobs himself did not write those emails to Jason Burford? Without a doubt. Is it possible that these replies were fabricated, and didn?t come from someone at Apple sending emails to Jason Burford from Steve Jobs? email address sjobs@apple.com? No. I believe 100% these emails are real, as I have been given access to Jason?s Google Apps email client and verified those headers to be legitimate, undoctored, and kosher. The replies were all real, the timestamps were all matched up, and the thread was consistent. This was not faked in any way whatsoever. Then there is also the logical part of me that would say, ?why?? Why would someone waste so much of their time to have their name involved in something so stupid when they are lying about it? To the extent of having their parent?s company now dragged into this, who both probably had no idea of this email exchange?
Let?s go over it one more time? someone who wanted to remain 100% anonymous and only asked to be paid a nominal fee of a couple hundred dollars lied and completely made up this entire thing? Someone who showed me in his AT&T call records more than two calls from Apple representatives (Texas phone numbers, confirmed to be Apple Customer Relations) on the exact dates he said they called trying to resolve the situation after he had emailed Steve Jobs? Someone who repeatedly emailed me and the BGR staff to correct the last line in my story since it wasn?t accurate? Someone who has now had his name revealed to the public via a tasteless article from AppleInsider, and is now being called by reporters non-stop asking about this article and whether his exchange is true or not? They still wouldn?t admit this was fake? No, you know why? Because it wasn?t fake.
Steve Jobs might not have personally sent those messages, but there isn?t any amount of spin Apple PR honcho Steve Dowling could throw on at this point because those email messages came from Steve Jobs? email box, and that?s all I or Jason care about.
And for the record, Apple PR has shockingly not responded for comment.
Here are the undoctored email headers if you?re interested.

 

[fresh1]

I copied them from Jason?s Gmail myself:
Delivered-To: jj@burfordadvertising.com
Received: by 10.223.120.9 with SMTP id b9cs118020far;
Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:27:24 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.142.119.26 with SMTP id r26mr9657517wfc.257.1277872043323;
Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:27:23 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path:
Received: from mail-out3.apple.com (mail-out3.apple.com [17.254.13.22])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id h16si9548774rvn.123.2010.06.29.21.27.22;
Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:27:23 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of sjobs@apple.com designates 17.254.13.22 as permitted sender) client-ip=17.254.13.22;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of sjobs@apple.com designates 17.254.13.22 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=sjobs@apple.com
Received: from relay14.apple.com (relay14.apple.com [17.128.113.52])
by mail-out3.apple.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 676679AB7A09
for ; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:27:22 -0700 (PDT)
X-AuditID: 11807134-b7b53ae000005755-28-4c2ac7aa0aef
Received: from elliott.apple.com (elliott.apple.com [17.151.62.13])
by relay14.apple.com (Apple SCV relay) with SMTP id 35.55.22357.AA7CA2C4; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:27:22 -0700 (PDT)
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/alternative;
boundary=?Boundary_(ID_8h2LEWuwqrtbxFRQqYCapQ)?
Received: from [17.248.4.101] (wave-dhcp101.apple.com [17.248.4.101])
by elliott.apple.com
(Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 6.3-7.04 (built Sep 26 2008; 32bit))
with ESMTPSA id <0L4T00MEH8DKBM30@elliott.apple.com> for
jj@burfordadvertising.com; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:27:22 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: No Fix
References: <9C1F0280-6BD5-490E-AF89-50710B677139@burfordadvertising.com>
<6E69753C-40F2-4327-9F0F-AA1BFAEAFF79@apple.com>
<0AEDD93C-E272-4EE2-9069-C673A698189B@burfordadvertising.com>
<561C74EC-C886-4AD9-B2DD-293F44453DB8@apple.com>
<188F384D-126C-4FFC-8A15-D68BA80FCF17@burfordadvertising.com>
From: Steve Jobs
X-Mailer: iPhone Mail (8A293)
In-reply-to: <188F384D-126C-4FFC-8A15-D68BA80FCF17@burfordadvertising.com>
Message-id: <65CA06C0-6380-4629-AC6C-FFB8B641CB3D@apple.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:26:39 -0700
To: Jason Burford
X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAQAAAZE=


Delivered-To: jj@burfordadvertising.com
Received: by 10.223.120.9 with SMTP id b9cs117138far;
Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:45:27 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.142.3.19 with SMTP id 19mr9139757wfc.200.1277869526323;
Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:45:26 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path:
Received: from mail-out4.apple.com (mail-out4.apple.com [17.254.13.23])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id e9si10331229rva.8.2010.06.29.20.45.25;
Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:45:26 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of sjobs@apple.com designates 17.254.13.23 as permitted sender) client-ip=17.254.13.23;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of sjobs@apple.com designates 17.254.13.23 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=sjobs@apple.com
Received: from relay16.apple.com (relay16.apple.com [17.128.113.55])
by mail-out4.apple.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 695D3A161FF5
for ; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:45:25 -0700 (PDT)
X-AuditID: 11807137-b7b43ae000004f8e-fe-4c2abdd50f50
Received: from earhart.apple.com (aldrin.apple.com [17.150.10.19])
by relay16.apple.com (Apple SCV relay) with SMTP id 12.A8.20366.5DDBA2C4; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:45:25 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:45:21 -0700
From: Steve Jobs
Subject: Re: No Fix
In-reply-to: <0AEDD93C-E272-4EE2-9069-C673A698189B@burfordadvertising.com>
To: Jason Burford
Message-id: <561C74EC-C886-4AD9-B2DD-293F44453DB8@apple.com>
MIME-version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1081)
Content-type: multipart/alternative;
boundary=?Boundary_(ID_Fye2Er1bSzctPHA4XIDCAA)?
References: <9C1F0280-6BD5-490E-AF89-50710B677139@burfordadvertising.com>
<6E69753C-40F2-4327-9F0F-AA1BFAEAFF79@apple.com>
<0AEDD93C-E272-4EE2-9069-C673A698189B@burfordadvertising.com>
X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAQAAAZE=


Delivered-To: jj@burfordadvertising.com
Received: by 10.223.120.9 with SMTP id b9cs118020far;
Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:27:24 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.142.119.26 with SMTP id r26mr9657517wfc.257.1277872043323;
Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:27:23 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path:
Received: from mail-out3.apple.com (mail-out3.apple.com [17.254.13.22])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id h16si9548774rvn.123.2010.06.29.21.27.22;
Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:27:23 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of sjobs@apple.com designates 17.254.13.22 as permitted sender) client-ip=17.254.13.22;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of sjobs@apple.com designates 17.254.13.22 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=sjobs@apple.com
Received: from relay14.apple.com (relay14.apple.com [17.128.113.52])
by mail-out3.apple.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 676679AB7A09
for ; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:27:22 -0700 (PDT)
X-AuditID: 11807134-b7b53ae000005755-28-4c2ac7aa0aef
Received: from elliott.apple.com (elliott.apple.com [17.151.62.13])
by relay14.apple.com (Apple SCV relay) with SMTP id 35.55.22357.AA7CA2C4; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:27:22 -0700 (PDT)
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/alternative;
boundary=?Boundary_(ID_8h2LEWuwqrtbxFRQqYCapQ)?
Received: from [17.248.4.101] (wave-dhcp101.apple.com [17.248.4.101])
by elliott.apple.com
(Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 6.3-7.04 (built Sep 26 2008; 32bit))
with ESMTPSA id <0L4T00MEH8DKBM30@elliott.apple.com> for
jj@burfordadvertising.com; Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:27:22 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: No Fix
References: <9C1F0280-6BD5-490E-AF89-50710B677139@burfordadvertising.com>
<6E69753C-40F2-4327-9F0F-AA1BFAEAFF79@apple.com>
<0AEDD93C-E272-4EE2-9069-C673A698189B@burfordadvertising.com>
<561C74EC-C886-4AD9-B2DD-293F44453DB8@apple.com>
<188F384D-126C-4FFC-8A15-D68BA80FCF17@burfordadvertising.com>
From: Steve Jobs
X-Mailer: iPhone Mail (8A293)
In-reply-to: <188F384D-126C-4FFC-8A15-D68BA80FCF17@burfordadvertising.com>
Message-id: <65CA06C0-6380-4629-AC6C-FFB8B641CB3D@apple.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:26:39 -0700
To: Jason Burford
X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAQAAAZE=


The entire Steve Jobs email story? It?s real ? Boy Genius Report

 

[fresh1]

I have written Steve three times with no response I guess my emails weren't controversial enough. I think Steve does answer some of the emails but seriously we all know Steve must get thousands of emails a day. So someone must go through the emails to see which ones are worth answering. I guess someone thought they'd have a little fun with the emails who knows.

Yea i am sure he gets tons of emails( especially now with everyone talking about the attena issue ) .... Let us know if he answers any of yours ..




Fresh1

 

[lungho]

BGR is full of it. I saw the post on his website. All he's trying to do is cover his butt and keep his credibility.

 

[greenapple]

^he even says it himself.

he guesses.
guesses.
guesses.

The entire Steve Jobs email story? It?s real
by Boy Genius on July 3rd, 2010 at 3:10pm



I obviously wanted to be 100% sure about this before I posted a follow up post, but before I go into the details, I?d like you all to know about how we operate over here?
Yes, BGR runs rumors and information that is not always completely confirmed. That is part of the game we are in. What we and other quality sites do is research, confirm, and make our best editorial judgements before running information that is not yet confirmed. Over the past 5 years, I?ve had more exclusives in the mobile field than anyone or any site on the entire planet, and my accuracy rate has been ridiculously high. I?d guess above 95%.
It?s a knack, a gut feeling, a judgment call that you sometimes make when you are sharing valuable information that no one has ever reported on before. There have been countless, and I do mean countless things other fine writers at BGR and I have walked away from entirely. Not ridiculous tips like ?the iPhone 7 has been released on Sprint and you can only buy it at Best Buy?, but rather high quality photos, or videos ? things very hard to fake. And we walk away.
One recent example in memory actually is the Xbox Kinect. We had that exclusive story sent to us as an anonymous tip a day or two before Engadget published it, revealing it to the world. Someone sent to us a photo of the then unheard of motion-controlled Xbox accessory, and lightly detailed it for us. They worked at an ad agency and were filming this promo piece, so they snapped a quick photo and shot it over to us. We couldn?t independently confirm something so amazingly cool like a brand new way to experience and play video games, so we passed on running the story. Since we were the tipster?s favorite site, he sent it to us first, but still wanting to share the information, he sent it to Engadget who then ran the story. We?re not saying Engadget did a poor job from an editorial viewpoint because they might have confirmed the story with a source at Microsoft, but we specifically couldn?t, so we passed. That is just one example of hundreds on how journalists and reporters make decisions on whether to go with a story or not, and it is always better to be safe than sorry. Our reputation isn?t worth a small or large exclusive. There is no reason to burn our readers for a cheap uptick in traffic for a day or two. It is not how I or we operate, and never will be.
On to the Steve Jobs emails.
Jason Burford, someone who we have never worked with in the past, emailed us and said that he had a pretty interesting email conversation with Steve Jobs and wanted to share it with us, but wanted to be compensated. He sent us the email headers and we had some of our independent tech guys verify the email header information and then inform us whether they were legitimate. Their response was yes, that they were legitimate, and that the entire thread would be extremely hard to fake, if not impossible. After speaking with Jason and getting more background, I decided to run that story. There was an error in my write up where the last line in the article was written to be said by Steve Jobs, when in fact it was Jason who emailed that in reply to Steve Jobs.
The last line was a huge mistake on my part. Jason emailed me probably 8 times over the course of an hour. He then started emailing Michael and Andrew to have them get a hold of me to correct that last quote?s attribution to Steve Jobs when it should have been attributed to Jason. His emails were stuck in Postini, my spam filter, and I didn?t get to see them until Michael and Andrew both forwarded me his emails telling us that last line was incorrect. But that still doesn?t change Apple from telling Fortune and Engadget that this exchange wasn?t with Steve Jobs and was fake, right?
Well, I personally couldn?t give a damn if this email was with Steve Jobs himself or not. What I care about is whether this was with Steve Jobs? email box, one that is obviously monitored by a bunch of employees at Apple, either in customer service or PR, or both. So, is it possible that Steve Jobs himself did not write those emails to Jason Burford? Without a doubt. Is it possible that these replies were fabricated, and didn?t come from someone at Apple sending emails to Jason Burford from Steve Jobs? email address? No. I believe 100% these emails are real, as I have been given access to Jason?s Google Apps email client and verified those headers to be legitimate, undoctored, and kosher. The replies were all real, the timestamps were all matched up, and the thread was consistent. This was not faked in any way whatsoever. Then there is also the logical part of me that would say, ?why?? Why would someone waste so much of their time to have their name involved in something so stupid when they are lying about it? To the extent of having their parent?s company now dragged into this, who both probably had no idea of this email exchange?
Let?s go over it one more time? someone who wanted to remain 100% anonymous and only asked to be paid a nominal fee of a couple hundred dollars lied and completely made up this entire thing? Someone who showed me in his AT&T call records more than two calls from Apple representatives (Texas phone numbers, confirmed to be Apple Customer Relations) on the exact dates he said they called trying to resolve the situation after he had emailed Steve Jobs? Someone who repeatedly emailed me and the BGR staff to correct the last line in my story since it wasn?t accurate? Someone who has now had his name revealed to the public via a tasteless article from AppleInsider, and is now being called by reporters non-stop asking about this article and whether his exchange is true or not? They still wouldn?t admit this was fake? No, you know why? Because it wasn?t fake.
Steve Jobs might not have personally sent those messages, but there isn?t any amount of spin Apple PR honcho Steve Dowling could throw on at this point because those email messages came from Steve Jobs? email box, and that?s all I or Jason care about.
And for the record, Apple PR has shockingly not responded for comment.
Here are the undoctored email headers if you?re interested.

 

[fresh1]

^he even says it himself.

he guesses.
guesses.
guesses.

Yea he does seem to guess alot ....




Fresh1

 

[lungho]

He's got a large Fandroid following. I suppose he feels the need to justify himself, even if his version of the truth is distorted.

 

[jakej914]

It seems highly unlikely that a conversation like that actually took place. While Steve may not provide Apple lovers (and I admit I'm one) with the answers they deserve (i.e. iP4 reception), he isn't an idiot, and I'd say a response like that would be idiotic.