The validity of recent e-mails supposedly sent by Steve Jobs to Apple customers is questionable, according to an analysis by Wired.com. We carefully examined the writing style and grammar of three recent e-mails claimed to have been sent by Jobs with three samples of his confirmed writing. With help from Wired.com’s copy editors and Patrick Farrell, head of the UC Davis linguistics department, we observed that the customer-reported e-mails contained elementary grammatical errors, which are absent from Jobs’ real e-mails; the CEO has a much stronger command of the English language than recent e-mails suggest.
Recently, two Apple customers have said they received e-mails from Jobs: A MacRumors reader claimed Jobs replied to his letter concerning iPhone 3G network issues, and a Gizmodo reader said Jobs wrote him an e-mail hinting at plans to offer an iPhone tethering option. For reference purposes, we also looked at a third e-mail purportedly sent by Jobs regarding the iPod touch.
Though the purported e-mails are terse, they reveal information about what’s coming for Apple — which is unusual, since Apple religiously operates in secrecy. Many blogs and news outlets picked up these e-mails and spread around the "facts" as if they came directly from Jobs himself.
The MacRumors e-mail about a fix coming for iPhone 3G to resolve its network issues sparked widespread speculation that the handset was responsible for connectivity problems. As time passed, however, more and more evidence suggests that the 3G networks themselves are more closely tied to network-related problems than the phone.
We compared the three customer-reported e-mails with e-mails verified to be real: Steve Jobs’ open letter to iPhone customers, his internal e-mail to Apple staff regarding MobileMe and another internal e-mail he sent to Apple staffers about outperforming Dell.
Which Versus That
MacRumors’ purported e-mail from Jobs about iPhone 3G connectivity the contains an obvious grammatical error. It says:
"We are working on some bugs which affect around 2% of the iPhones shipped, and hope to have a software update soon. Steve"
According to Wired.com copy chief Tony Long, the usage of "which" is grammatically incorrect; "that" would be the correct word.
Compare this to the e-mail Jobs sent to Apple staff regarding the MobileMe launch, in which he used "that" correctly:
One step that I can share with you today is that the MobileMe team will now report to Eddy Cue, who will lead all of our internet services – iTunes, the App Store and, starting today, MobileMe.
Unnecessary Commas
The MacRumors email also includes a comma after the word "shipped." Though this is not an absolute mistake, it’s an informal and unnecessary comma that only exists to create a pause in the sentence. The sentence would be grammatically stronger had it used the word "we" before "hope."
An unnecessary comma also appears in the customer-reportede-mail on Gizmodo after the word "agree." It says: "We agree, and are discussing it with ATT. Steve"
By contrast, Jobs doesn’t have a problem with unnecessary commas in his open letter to iPhone customers. Notice how in the sentence starting with "Details" there is no unnecessary comma after the word "out":
"Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple’s website next week. Stay tuned. We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple."
Independent Clauses
Also, in Jobs’ iPhone open letter, notice how in the sentence starting with "We apologize," he properly uses "we" to make the second clause of that sentence an independent clause.
This in contrast to the two customer-reported emails, which both included an unnecessary comma after the "and." If Jobs had been consistent with the customer-reported emails, his note would have read, "We apologize for disappointing some of you, and are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple."
Closing Words
Linguistics professor Farrell pointed out that in e-mails confirmed to be from Jobs, the CEO never includes closing words such as "Sincerely" or "Best Regards." However, in a customer-reported e-mail about the iPod touch, Jobs concludes with the closing words "Best, Steve."
Compare this to the internal e-mail Jobs sent to staff about Apple outperforming Dell, which one would imagine could merit the word "Best":
Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn’t perfect at predicting the future. Based on today’s stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.
Fake or Real?
Farrell said Jobs’ verified writing shows he has a very good grasp of written English: It is grammatical and well structured.
"The grammar in all the e-mails is competent, native, and standard English," he said.
However, he said the evidence of just three short e-mails was too scant to come to a conclusion.
"I don’t see anything obvious that would lead me to believe that the three questionable emails are fake," he said. "I think one would need more evidence. Longer emails or something."
Out of the three customer-reported e-mails, the Gizmodo e-mail appears to be the most legitimate: The headers contain an IP address that can be traced back to Apple headquarters, explained Gizmodo’s Mark Wilson.
"I’m pretty sure the tip is legit," Wilson wrote in an e-mail. "I know for sure that Jobs really emails customers like this. And the source didn’t have that shady, 10-year-old prankster vibe. They shared their
complete email thread including IPs from the correspondence."
However, the MacRumors e-mail containing the misuse of "which" appears to be the most suspicious — and its claims about iPhone 3G network problems being fixed with a software update thus far appear to be untrue.
Apple and MacRumors did not respond to a request for comment.
(Photo credit: acaben/Flickr)
