Get ready for the latest Internet scandal: fake e-mails from Steve Jobs. Well, real e-mails that weren’t sent by Steve Jobs, if that makes any sense.
Wired looked at three e-mails purportedly sent by Steve Jobs in recent weeks: one posted by a MacRumors user, which addresses iPhone 3G connectivity issues; one sent to Gizmodo addressing possible iPhone tethering options; and one addressing the iPod touch.
In Wired’s estimation, these e-mails were not sent by Steve Jobs. We’ve all been had.
Working with the head of the UC Davis linguistics department, along with copy staff, Wired compared these e-mails to those known to have been sent by Jobs himself, including that “MobileMe stinks, we’re sorry” e-mail sent not too long ago. Noting irregularities in the examined e-mails’ grammar and syntax, Wired now believes that the three aforementioned are fake as can be. Incorrect usage of “which” versus “that,” unusual parting words (Jobs doesn’t say “best” or “sincerely” when he concludes e-mails), and the like all point to those e-mails being false. That, in turn, casts doubt on the veracity of the e-mails’ claims, obviously.
What should we call this scandal, JobsGate, EmailGate, LeaveSteveAloneGate?
I’m not buying it. Do these people honestly believe that ONLY Steve wrote these official messages/memos they used for comparision? Surely the MobileMe email and the two memos mentioned were read by several copy editors (and at the very least, an assistant or two) to ensure proper grammar, spelling, sentence structure, etc.
These little 2-3 lines emails that Steve sends to people personally from time to time surely don’t have nearly the scrutiny applied to them as an official communication from Apple.
IMO, the whole premise of their comparisons are false–you can’t compare casual written text to “official memo” written text. That’s like comparing the grammar someone uses in asking their friends out for dinner with the email they sent out earlier in the day detailing the company’s goals for the upcoming year. They’re likely to be drastically different.
I have to agree. They may be fake but you can’t base the reasoning on such flawed points. Aaron has explained it well so I won’t expand.
Why do you write an article about an… article? And you did nothing else but write about what they wrote about? Don’t you think people can just as well hop over to the original article and read that instead? Should I post an article writing about how you wrote an article writing about another article?