Steve Jobs chops student hack down to size

Might I suggest another angle on her project?

Mahaps the lady should check with professor regarding the topic of her article.

I personally would make it a point to write a piece about the poor to non-existent levels of helpfulness of the Mac beast in the politest of terms myself. Arrogance at the top does not bode well for any company.

Jobs...

what a wan.....

the royal

1st person plural: "we are not amused"

I also want to go on the record to say that I do not condone any comments about "leave us alone" having anything to do with multiple personalities.

Once upon a time...

"When he was in eighth grade, Steve Jobs decided to build a frequency counter for a school project and needed parts. Someone suggested that he call Bill Hewlett. Finding a William Hewlett in the telephone book, the 12-year-old Jobs called and asked, "Is this the Bill Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard?" "Yes," said Bill. Jobs made his request. Bill spent some time talking to him about his project. Several days later, Jobs went to HP and picked up a bag full of parts that Bill had put together for him. "

Quoted from http://www.hp.com/retiree/history/founders/hewlett/quotes.html

Wonder what Jobs would have done had Hewlett told him to 'leave him alone'?

Academia abandoned

In primary school in the late 80s we wrote newsletters on Clarisworks on a Mac Classic. In secondary school in the mid 90s we used similar Mac Classics to learn IT basics, again using Clarisworks.

These started my fondness for Macs.

In unversity, a project that built upon a C based interpreter that could be built on a PowerPC unix system prompted me to buy an OSX Mac Mini. I then picked up a cheap G3, an LC475 (free with a decent cheap monitor) and a Classic for the fun of it.

My learning experiences and studies brought me into contact with Macs, the same for others, otherwise they would be as obscure as Acorns and Amigas are now.

However, now I feel that Apple have left this academia support behind and became a "trendy" marque, much like Audi which was once the quirky German alternative to Saab and Citroen, and now is bought by sheep (and in my experience is now less likely to be seen in a lecturers car park, amongst the other two examples).

What happens when the trendies move on to the next big thing?

Mid 90s all over again without the education market?

No sympathy

It's not Apple's responsibility to help out an undergraduate with her work. That's her job, so if she's on a deadline with nothing done, then she clearly doesn't know how to do her essay properly. If she was smart, she wouldn't rely on one source to be able to complete her work.

Useless student

I see media students are being trained in all the latest PR techniques, such as purely relying on a company's press releases to write a story.

If I was her lecturer, I'd fail her for relying 100% on Apple's PR department to provide the information she needs for her project. A single source is never going to be good enough.

As arrogant as Apple can be, I can fully agree with them here; their PR department probably has actual *work* to do, beyond helping students with their projects.

It's amazing how many student requests PR departments get, especially if a whole class has been given the same project. And they tend to ask incredibly open-ended questions (eg. Please describe the marketing activities of your company...) which essentially mean they want you to write their essays for them.

Sorry students, FAIL.

I laughed

I actually thought this was quite funny, and typically American brash.

A more subtle british approach would be to tell her to "please visit our extensive library of press archives, where you will find the information you require".

This response would not be the coupe de gras of the SJ response, but certainly instill in her the will to curl and up die - or at least never to call the PR department again.

If ...

you have a really, really good product that performs exactly as required, is fully intuitive, never ever falls over (i.e. 100% operational - no failures, errors or any of that boring stuff) then you have no need of a large PR department or Support come to that.

But I guess what Steve Jobs was trying to say is "You're too stupid to be playing with my perfect little iPad" or perhaps "if you need to ask how to work it you shouldn't be using it!"

I'm with David McMahon

I also would not buy a deceased Foxxconn employee - not after the last one, it wasn't even fresh, battery life was awful and it wouldn't synch with my PC.

I'll get me coat..

Lazy wannabe "journo" cries because Jobs won't write her essay.

There, that neatly encapsulates the entire issue.

Lazy, whiney, wannabe "journo" is too lazy and/or too stupid to do her own research (then again, what "journo" these days bothers with research anyway? I mean, have you SEEN the bullshit in the papers?!) demands Apple's PR department write her essay for her then, with when they decline to acquiesce to her request, she demands Jobs makes them write it for her, and then she bitches and moans when he doesn't.

Hey, guess way, lazy-student - try EARNING your grades, try doing the work YOURSELF, rather than hoping to score big points by regurgitating PR department output for once...

She should FAIL her course

Doesn't she know the first rule of journalistic sourcing: Wikipedia

It is the font of all knowledge, both good and true. I'm sure she'd got an A+ if she'd gone to the right place.

I'm with Steve

I can sympathise with his response.

I keep getting emails from iTunes Germany which I've found it impossible to unsubscribe from. No one at Apple replied to my requests to be removed from their mailing list so I sent Steve an email in which I wrote "Please leave me alone". I completely understand how annoying it can be to get emails you don't want.

Arrogance of Apple encapsulated and personified in an ignorant pig

Jobs idea of Customer Care is nothing. It personifies Apples attitude towards it's customers. F You!

Whether iPhans agree or not (please use the red box below) he told them to F Off when it came to fixing the Lemon 4 - he lied and never did fix all the problems.

Jobs could care less as long as the cash keeps on coming in. The Japanese called his bluff and he blinked. They got his number right on. There's a word for this - fraud.

This is a terrible story

I've had to upvote several posters who are supporting Mr. Jobs.

Can we get back to stories where Apple and/or Mr. Jobs are at fault? They reassure me that all's right with the world.

What a Turd

Obviously The Sacred J is interested only in getting what money she might have out of her pocket and into his. What a common turd! Not a way to win friends and influence people in my opinion and just pushes me further from the Apple store. Unless she's his next liver donor he has no use for her.

not suprised

just have to look at how he runs the company to see he is a complete dick. seeing as this is on el reg and prolly other sites too i think she may end up with a better grade than she first feared?

The messiah had spoken- via iphone

I quit buying apple after they kicked Wozniak to the curb. At that time, Apple was the hacker's choice. But as things go, locking the OS and being idiots didn't help. If jobs was smart, he should have sent the request to a lower level flying monkey to handle it. I guess you have to work hard at being a class A jackass.

I'm throwing down the big brother card because that's what "Mr. Anti-establishment" turned into.

Does she not yet know...

...that if you want someone else to write your homework for you, you have to go to Yahoo! Answers?

That's what all the other whiney schoolkids do anyway.

yes

I know it's hip and trendy to call Apple (and Jobs) arrogant, but let's not forget that journalists have been a lot more arrogant for a longer time. They are evidently also a lot stupider.

And this was just a student too.

Her skills, if this is true, are irrelevant

The PR department should've given her the Vulture, sorry, bird.

I've not checked all the dropdowns at http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1384.html - is this one of them? ;-)

Oh and is it really sjobs@apple.com? :-)

as the internets says:

LEAVE... BRITNEY ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H STEVIE... ALONE... !

So goes the Mac

Not a fan of Apple, its overly brutal control of aps, and they price they charge for their toys.

but we do have Apple to thank for many things. Heck, thanks to iTunes you can pay .99 for every television show want to watch on your portable device. That's brilliant!

no, not really relavant to the story - but i can't resist a good stab at overpriced underpowered gadgets.

I don't own any Apple products...

so therefore I'm not biased. Steve was just showing her how a real hand model does it.

http://wikibin.org/articles/chelsea-isaacs.html

Except he specialises in the middle finger.

At the risk of sounding serious...

I can't say I much care for journalism or the institutions that churn them out like cannon fodder, but sufficed to say, Mr. Jobs is clearly the biggest dick of the first decade of the new millennium. And as much as Apple has done to weasel itself into most educational institutions, you’d figure that Mr. Jobs would be a little more civil to the demographic he’s worked so hard to indoctrinate.

they have a point

wow so her academic grade depends on a reply from a press office? what is she in primary school? I suggest she gets a couple of proper sources and does some proper research rather than join the copy and paste press releases mob. please leave them (Apple) alone.

All seem to be missing the point.

"Chelsea Isaacs, a journalism student at Long Island University was tasked with writing a piece about an iPad program at the campus."

As she is from the US of States, I would assume 'iPad Program' refers to a Programme, or iPad app at the campus.

If that were the case, what the ferk has it to do with Apple?

If it a programme, which is to encourage the use of the iPad as an educational tool, surely, the quotes, background etc, should come from the college.

Well said Steve, I wouldn't have couched in such nice terms, I would have probably told her f*@k off and then billed her for my time.

Really?

So she searched the net, and found the real Steve Jobs email address? Really? THE Steve Jobs, or Steve Jobs that works in accounting at Heiffer and Sons, or Steve Jobs the painter and decorator or Stev.......

Because of course if find information on the interwebs its always true. Even Kylie Minogue agreed with me when I was chatting with on messenger last night.

Deserves to fail

She deserves to fail. Her emails were rude and sent to the wrong people. Jobs gave her more tie than she deserved, and she was rude with it. She's the arrogant one. It's not up to Apple PR or any company CEO to do her homework. I'd support Bill Gates for doing the same, and Shuttleworth too. I hope she leans a lesson about how to behave and becomes a better journalist, if she passes. She missed he obvious angle on this story, which doesn't bode well for her.

What's the problem here?

She wants to be a journo and wrote to some company and expected them to write her paper for her.

Sounds like she's off to a great start to me!

Meh....

To be honest, if I was Steve and got an email saying "the hypocrisy of ignoring student needs" (a cut and paste), I wouldn't immediately be in the most helpful of moods!

She had three emails responded to by Jobs, but she didn't think of asking the "three quick questions" - talk about a wasted opportunity, now she can't even say "Steve Jobs declined to comment".

She also said "I have called countless times throughout the week, leaving short, but detailed, messages which included my contact information and the date of my deadline. Today, I left my 6th message" - so "countless" would be five then? maybe a fax and email to them would also have been a good idea given that they are not responding to phone messages, perhaps they are inundated with phone messages?

Go Steve!

Presumably Apple's PR dept has better things to do than answer inane questions from random dweebs, which is why they never returned her calls (neither would I).

Yeah, Steve should have kept his mouth shut and just kicked a cat or something, but I can't blame him when I'd have been tempted to use less temperate language.

Of course, this whole thing is almost certainly a hoax from some sad little girl who's desperate for attention.

The whole story

As much as I don't like the guy, let's take another look at the situation:

Does anyone actually know what the "3 questions" actually were and how she worded her requests to Apple's PR dept.?

For all you know she may well have been asking questions no reasonable company may be expected to answer.

That wasn't a real email from Jobs

Clearly Steve Jobs didn't send that email because the word "sorry" was used.

So she's got her material....

She just needs to publish a piece that's got a suitably dressed up version of the message "Apple are a bunch of arrogant wankers". The non-story is a story -- how Apple manipulate publicity to control their product image, how they don't talk to anyone unless they perceive some advantage to them to do so and so on.

Apple thrive because the competition's so inept.

Personally, I use older versions of Windows (for when I absolutely have to run Windows) and, of course, Linux. I find newer code is bloated and its attempts to make it user friendly have made it all but unusable -- you have to swallow abstractions that suit various marketing departments but don't represent the structure of the machine.

Glad I don't waste my money on this arrogant company

I'm glad I don't waste my money on this arrogant company, time and time again they show it's all about sales and not the customer.