• Apple Re: iPhone 4 issues: "Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it." UPDATED

    Matt Burns

    Matt is a Senior Editor at TechCrunch. Matt Burns is a family man first and attempts to be a writer second. Born and raised in the heart of the automotive world, only cars eclipse his love of gadgets. He previously wrote for Engadget and EngadgetHD before moving into the party house that is TechCrunch. He learned the retail side of... → Learn More

    Thursday, July 1st, 2010

    The iPhone 4 antenna issue is real. The leaked Apple troubleshooting documents and job posting confirms what a lot of iPhone 4 owners are stating. Worse yet, a lot of owners are finding that bumpers — DIY or official ones — don’t totally solve the problem. The world is quickly crashing down around Apple fans everywhere. But Steve JobsTom has some advice, “Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it.”

    That’s what he supposedly emailed to one very irate iPhone 4 owner who, along with a few friends, are finding the iPhone 4 has major problems. Steve first tells the owner to calm down, then blames his problems on signal strength, and then finally states “[Apple] is working on it.”

    Of course Apple is working on it. Sure, there might some PR-type spinning going on by stating that there isn’t a problem or users are just holding the phone wrong, but it’s AT&T that’s likely pushing for a quick solution. For once, it’s not the carrier’s fault that the iPhone is dropping calls even though AT&T is the front line support for most iPhone owners. A working solution must be right around the corner although most people said that about the Gulf oil spill months ago, too. (In no way does the iPhone 4 compare to the Gulf crisis, btw)

    But it’s Tom’s last email that puts it all in perspective.

    Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it.

    Seriously. It’s just a damn phone. Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten that Apple4ver tattoo because sometimes even Apple produces a flawed product. To Steve Jobs it’s just another product in a long line of hits. Remember, he might be the best person to attest to enjoying family time and not sweating the little things after surviving a rare form of pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant.

    If Steve Jobs isn’t worried about it, then maybe you shouldn’t be either. Then again, $200 is a lot of money for some of Apple’s customers, which is something billionaire Jobs might have forgot. It’s really not too much to ask that a basic function like placing a phone call works reliably.

    UPDATE – Apparently that “Retire” line was written by Apple Dev “Tom” who was also involved in the exchange. I mean who encourages someone to “retire?”

    Also, this could be completely fake, so there’s that.

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