A local Realtor’s heated email exchange with Apple CEO Steve Jobs is stirring a bit of controversy within the technology news blogosphere.
J. Jason Burford of Richmond said in an article published by InformationWeek that he sold a series of emails between him and Jobs to a technology blog called Boy Genius. In the emails, Burford grills Jobs over reception issues with the new iPhone4. The responses, purported to be from Steve Jobs, who is known to personally to reply to emails to his public address, are short and and to the point.
Here is a bit from the InformationWeek Story:
AppleInsider reported Thursday that Burford had tried to sell the email thread to the site two days before. Burford acknowledged sending an email to the site, but said he only made a “tongue-in-cheek” reference to payment. “It was more of a joke,” he said. “I said I wanted money to buy a new phone.”
Most traditional news media refuse to pay news sources for information.
Here is the first exchange between Burford and Jobs. Burford’s name was omitted at the time and replaced with Tom:
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]
Here is Steve Jobs’ reply:
No, you are getting all worked up over a few days of rumors. Calm down.
You can read the full post at Boy Genius. The emails elicited a statement from Apple’s PR department that claimed the email thread was a fake. In the InformationWeek story, Burford said that the e-mails were genuine, although he isn’t positive whether the responses are from Jobs or Apple employees.
A local Realtor’s heated email exchange with Apple CEO Steve Jobs is stirring a bit of controversy within the technology news blogosphere.
J. Jason Burford of Richmond said in an article published by InformationWeek that he sold a series of emails between him and Jobs to a technology blog called Boy Genius. In the emails, Burford grills Jobs over reception issues with the new iPhone4. The responses, purported to be from Steve Jobs, who is known to personally to reply to emails to his public address, are short and and to the point.
Here is a bit from the InformationWeek Story:
AppleInsider reported Thursday that Burford had tried to sell the email thread to the site two days before. Burford acknowledged sending an email to the site, but said he only made a “tongue-in-cheek” reference to payment. “It was more of a joke,” he said. “I said I wanted money to buy a new phone.”
Most traditional news media refuse to pay news sources for information.
Here is the first exchange between Burford and Jobs. Burford’s name was omitted at the time and replaced with Tom:
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]
Here is Steve Jobs’ reply:
No, you are getting all worked up over a few days of rumors. Calm down.
You can read the full post at Boy Genius. The emails elicited a statement from Apple’s PR department that claimed the email thread was a fake. In the InformationWeek story, Burford said that the e-mails were genuine, although he isn’t positive whether the responses are from Jobs or Apple employees.
I’ve been following this since the first day the issue had cropped up (The same day it went on sale.), including the email exchange with Jobs. Apples approach to this issue is not unique and catches no one by surprise in the tech world. Followers of Apple have been caught off guard by the reaction though and there’s quite a bit of confusion out there about what’s going on and how a software update is going to fix a physical abnormality. As Steve said in the beginning…There’s nothing wrong with the phone, you’re just holding wrong. iPhone 4 has had… Read more »
How much money did he make? And did scoring a sale to a desperate for publicity website fuel his indignation? His spelling and grammar, if you read the original email exchange, is shockingly inadequate for someone who works in advertising. Reflects poorly on his agency.
@Mariane
According to boygeniusreport.com (The ones who broke this exchange.) he “asked to be paid a nominal fee of a couple hundred dollars…” We can only speculate that this is for his time and trouble.
This is quite different than the several thousand dollars asked for the working prototype of the iPhone 4 when it was found in a bar several months ago.
fyi: This “email exchange” is a confimed hoax: http://venturebeat.com/2010/07/01/steve-jobs-calm-down-email-is-a-hoax-says-apple/
@Daniel
Not “confirmed” but denied by Apple and your posted article also updates:
“Boy Genius Report has now identified the “Tom” in he article as Jason Burford of Virginia and in its second update to the story it has included a full email thread with email header and screen shots of the actual emails that appear to come from Steve Jobs’ email account. It looks like Apple’s denial is overly broad. Jobs didn’t write some of what was attributed to him through an editing error, but he probably wrote the rest.”
BGR’s update can be found here:
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/03/the-entire-steve-jobs-email-story-its-real/
Irony, didn’t see that. Makes this a quite interesting story again. Thanks for the updated link.
P.S. I wrote an email to Steve Jobs, too, but never heard back. Would love to get into a discussion with him on why Apple continues to stick with AT&T. I just got rid of my iPhone 3GS and my iPad 3G+WiFi because I was sick of AT&T: poor reception inside of buildings, switching to the EDGE network randomly when I was outside in the Richmond area, the new (and extremely oppressive) data transfer limits (I was grandfathered in on the iPhone, but probably wouldn’t have been for long on the iPad – if I forgot to change my credit… Read more »
@Daniel
Yea, can’t argue the point with AT&T. Personally I think that Apple looked at AT&T’s network speed and didn’t consider coverage (Or the lack there of) as a problem. I could be wrong but it looks as if AT&T’s weaknesses showed up when the iPhone became popular and everyone had to have one. I’ve heard they’re pretty much useless in San Francisco and New York.
BTW, my oldest son got his hands on an EVO and loves it. He says battery life is an issue but adjustments to the phone have helped. I wouldn’t mind one myself.
I think it’s a design issue, not really AT&T’s fault. How can you design the phone with the antennas on the two sides where your hand will be holding it.