Steve Jobs Battles Irate iPhone 4 Users In Angry E-mail Exchange
The latest iPhone 4 fiasco apparently involved Jobs and a Virgina man who embarked on a testy e-mail exchange over the smartphone's reception issues.
The Virginia user expressed strong criticism about the AppleCare policies leaked last week which, among other things, blamed the reason for the pervasiveness of dropped calls and lack of reception on the way the device was held. Specifically, the leaked policy stipulates that Apple employees are instructed to tell iPhone users that the problems stemmed from them wrapping their hands around the antenna, located in the side of the mobile device.
The user had posted a YouTube video demonstrating his ability to block the signal on an iPhone 4, and was subsequently contacted by an Apple engineer. The e-mail thread was sent to Boy Genius Report, who published the exchange.
"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," the user replied to the Apple engineer who can e-mailed him about the video. "This is just sickening."
The correspondence made its way up the channels all the way to CEO Steve Jobs, who allegedly responded, "No, you are getting all worked up over a few days of rumors. Calm down," Jobs said.
"I am really insulted 'calm down'…'rumors'…what arrogance, the user wrote. "This is [sic] will be marked as the begging [sic] of the end of Apple. Seriously DO THE RIGHT THING. I just had dinner with 3 people who had iPhone 4s we all can't make calls without dropping. This is no rumors it is reality. "
Jobs responded that the user "was most likely in an area with very low signal strength."
"Stop with the jackass comments," the user retorted. "The whole country 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," he said.
"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 work in Richmond when you hold it in your hand. It is not isolated. I was a big fan. But I am done.
"You may be working from bad data. Not your fault. Stay tuned. We are working on it," Jobs replied, although he stopped short of explaining whether "working on it' means that Apple is repairing its antenna design flaws or is working with AT&T to expand coverage.
Meanwhile, according to MacDailyNews, another irate user writes 'What's the point of building in HD video capabilities when the compression upon uploading directly to YouTube makes the videos useless and not viewable? They're not even remotely viewable!!"
"You can upload them via a Mac or PC today," Jobs responded. "Over the air in the future."
Update: Apple has reportedly denied the e-mail exchange is legitimate. Boy Genius Report, meanwhile, maintains the e-mails are real and not fabricated.