09.20.10
Ninja Steve Jobs Tells Young Journalist: “Leave Us Alone.”
“My Interview with Steve Jobs!”
Summary: The rudeness of Steve Jobs helps show that even after his near-death experience the Apple superstar patronises his surroundings
With memorable phrases like “that’s the dumbest fucking idea I’ve heard since I’ve been at Microsoft” and “Fuck! It took you a year to figure that out!”, it ought to be clear that Bill Gates is not the polite guy people see on camera. Likewise, Steve Jobs in not the gentleman people are led to believe that he is (the image of company founders is immensely important to the company’s image and thus performance in terms of sales).
“Now Steve Jobs Is Having An Email Pissing Match with A College Journalism Student,” says this headline about Jobs telling a young lady: “Leave us alone.” Who is “us” anyway?
Steve Jobs is known for replying to random emails sent to his personal Apple email address. Well, a college journalism student from Long Island emailed him about a problem she had with Apple’s PR department. Jobs’ response? “Leave us alone.”
Remember Jobs’ rather menacing or rude response to the FSFE. “A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other “open source” codecs now,” he said.
Apple is a major threat to software freedom and Techrights treats Apple just like it treats any other company that jeopardises computing and turns ingenuity into toys with limited functionality and artificially-elevated/high cost. “Consumer watchdog lambasts Apple’s Iphone 4 rubber band program,” says this new headline from The Inquirer which starts as follows:
SWEEPING MATTERS under the rug only works if everyone forgets about it, but for Iphone 4 antennagate it seems that Consumer Reports isn’t nearly ready to let Apple forget it.
As Apple wraps up its free rubber band giveaway, the US consumer product testing magazine Consumer Reports has come out and fired another salvo at the fruit themed toymaker by repeating its recommendation not to buy the Iphone 4. The outfit also denounced the ‘new’ rubber band program, charging that it is “less consumer-friendly in several respects”.
Apple CEO and cult leader Steve Jobs offered customers a selection of cases in order to overcome the faulty design of the Iphone 4 antenna. Since then, the cappuccino company has laid the groundwork for withdrawing its offer by claiming that the number of those customers affected by the problem was “even smaller than we originally thought”.
“Apple tries to spin its broken Iphone 4,” says another headline from The Inquirer:
FRUIT THEMED Apple is having another go at spinning itself out of the public relations disaster that is the Iphone 4.
After initially pretending that the Iphone 4 dropping calls was all in the imagination of the press and nothing to do with poor design, Apple offered to “fix” the problem by giving users a free rubber band.
At the time it said that it would stop giving anyone a rubber band by September. The assumption was that the problem would be fixed by then.
It is disappointing to see so much attention being paid to minor issues (gossip almost) like Steve Jobs carrying ‘ninja throwing stars’ in hand luggage. From The Register:
Steve Jobs has vowed never to visit Japan again after being prevented from leaving the country with a set of ninja throwing stars, according to a local magazine.
“Steve Jobs no ninja, says Apple” stated a followup from The Register the following day:
Sensei Steve’s supposed double life as a black-clad Japanese assassin was revealed yesterday, when Bloomberg reported a local magazine’s account of the alleged incident.
“Steve Jobs ninja story won’t die on Web” says CNN.
Steve Jobs is apparently not arming himself for ninja warfare.
Apple has found itself in the bizarre position of having to deny that claim this week after a tabloid report that its CEO was stopped at a Japanese airport with ninja throwing stars.
It’s more like gossip and not a big deal [1, 2, 3, 4] although one could argue that Jobs’ obsession with weaponry does not look all that great, even if it’s just a souvenir. █
