Earlier this week we reported on a story that had been doing the rounds — another Steve Jobs email thread with an irate customer. Like many other stories about Jobs’ emails to customers, this yarn centered around a user disappointed with his iPhone 4’s service, and Steve’s flippant responses. The first time we saw the story crop up, we were suspicious of its validity (and frankly, newsworthiness), and we became even more suspicious after AppleInsider ran an article claiming that the source of the supposed emails had been shopping the tale for cash (Engadget was not contacted by the source). We did eventually cover the story, but only after Apple itself responded to the tale, claiming — first to Fortune and then to us — that the emails were false, and the exchange had not happened. That struck us as particularly newsworthy, because in all our years of reporting on Steve Jobs’ wild personal emails (of which there are many, many examples), we’d never heard Apple refute that the emails were coming from him.
Now, Boy Genius Report (where the original story appeared) has fired back, emphatically claiming that the emails are real, and that the proof is in the original message headers which the site has been given access to by the source. BGR goes one step further as well, and essentially accuses Apple PR of spinning this story to news outlets to suit its needs. And let’s not mince words — the claim is that Apple PR is lying to the press. The proof which BGR offers is no more or less convincing to us than the site’s previous post on the subject; email headers and timestamps can be faked. Still, it is notable that Boy Genius is pushing back on this story, and we certainly don’t believe the blog would knowingly publish a false email thread. As TechCrunch points out in its take on the matter, PR reps often give vague, sugarcoated, or misleading information to news sites, but there has never been a time when Apple’s PR has outright lied to major publications (that we know of). That would be a mess of epic proportions, and we can’t really fathom why they would go to the trouble. The company has obviously let stuff like this slide for years — this seems like an odd time (and a relatively minor story) to get up in arms about it. We’ve reached out to Apple for further statement on this, and will report back as soon as we hear something. In the meantime, take a look at the source link and see what BGR has to say on the matter.
Steve Jobs emails ‘are real’ claims Boy Genius Report, says Apple PR lied to press originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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