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It's a possibility that Steve does answer all the emails which are signed off in his name.

Like others, after many troubles with both a Macbook and Macbook Pro I sent a frustrated message to the fabled email. I never got a response from Steve, buth rather an Apple Executive relations person. I have to admit, he bent over backwards to make sure everything which I wanted done was sorted. This does suggest that it was a request from the top.

Personally, I think the OP has overexagerrated slightly and probably should go to an Apple Store if everything he claims is correct. I think it would be an awful shame if Jobs or some other big cat at Apple flipped the off switch on this communication channel due to these kind of emails. I admire that Apple use this as a tool for being able to contact the top if you have a [real] issue which you feel hasn't been dealth with correctly. Something, as mentioned earlier, which is a rareity in large corperations, or even sizely companies these days.


Edit: Just re-read your issue a little closer, looks like you may have a real grievance there.
 
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customerservice said:
my only point is that nobodys iphone, through normal use, has to be restored 40 times. either this is a HUGE exaggeration (ironically to get some money out of steve jobs) or you are doing some ridiculously out of the normal tasks with your iphone. ill grant that there are going to be some hardware issues, but a replacement, as you said you got, should fix that. im guessing there is some user error involved here. im not trying to be an apple appologist, just realistic.

Your assumptions are incorrect. It would help greatly if you had at least an inkling of a clue about this topic. For the umpteenth time, GOOGLE 'APPLE LOGO DEATH' AND EDUCATE YOURSELF, JUST A LITTLE. Three little words, and five minutes of reading. Or maybe it's just easier to blame me for Apple's buggy software. :rolleyes:
 
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cookiemoose said:
Look at my edit to my post.

As a side note, have you done a proper restore from recovery mode?

Yeah, I noticed your edit after I posted. Thanks. :)

And to answer your question: yes, numerous times. ;)
 
seriously do you guys really think he is actually typing that? everybody that has a problem writes a email to that address, I rather think he is using a email address that isn't expected by the customer to write to. Something like a weird combination of his full name. Fill in the blanks but I certainly know he isn't writing that.
 
This problem is not being exaggerated and the OP is not alone in excessive restores or any other desperate attempts to get their new (and original) iPhone up and running the way it was meant to work. First, click this link below to read just one of the many marathon threads (at Apple Discussions) on the issues that many people (including Technical Professionals) are having, but are being pushed aside due to the MobileMe and 3G Service issues getting all the attention:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1644897

The problem is within in iTunes v7.7.1 – there is something within iPhone 2.01 and the latest iTunes that render *some* iPhones useless at random times. At first, both your gut and AppleCare know that a restore is the only answer (hence the excess restores just to get a working phone again), but after weeks of countless wasted hours, there may be a temporary work around.

With that said, I will never understand why people (who aren’t suffering from the same hardware/software issues) find the need to reply to these threads with ridiculous comments and unfounded accusations like, ‘well, mine’s fine so you must have did something to **** yours up’. I would say that it’s people like *that* who turn forums like this into a negative place where negative people who can’t relate to the issues at hand, criticize those who are actually having them.

Here’s a news flash – just because your iPhone (or any other item/software) is working and ‘good enough for you’, doesn’t mean all is hunky-dory for everyone else. I agree, there are many user-responsible issues, but you can’t assume they all are. Also, let’s not forget that most people aren’t power users, and they may not run into problems since they aren’t using their iPhone to their fullest capacity (as billed).

Everyone uses their iPhones differently. 1st (for me) my iPhone is my ‘little Mac’ away from home (as it’s capable of being) – so I have several useful and fun Apps installed. 2nd, it’s my Video iPod – so I have a lot of audio and video content loaded – which is a pleasure during my daily commute. 3rd, it’s my pocket internet/email/text communication device, so a steady and (quicker than Edge) connection is imperative. Oh yeah, it’s also a phone (4th) – I get reminded of that when it rings.

So if my iPhone was merely ‘my cell phone’ and I just had a handful of Apps installed and a couple of playlists loaded, I probably wouldn’t be having many problems either. If that were the case, I certainly wouldn’t be ignorant and immature and criticize others because they are running into issues that I am not.

Unfortunately, most problems with the iPhone *are* with and due to Apps (one of the main new features of iPhone 2.0) so why question those who actually use (and need) them? The iPhone is a multifunctional device, and all these functions should actually ‘work’ as Apple tells us they will.

The iPhone isn’t just a phone with a few added features, it’s the modern day ‘Newton’. The iPhone is Apple’s version of the Blackberry, their PDA, PocketPC or Smartphone. Regardless of what you call it, the iPhone is never *just* a phone. Way back when, I was very surprised to learn that the official name was ‘iPhone’ since the phone is such a small part of the device – but that’s just me, since we all use the device differently.

Having said that, if you’re a user like me and wish to use and enjoy *all* features of the iPhone and all of its (amazing) Apps and media available to the fullest capacity, chances are you’re going to run into problems. If you’re a light user and just use the native apps and native features – your comments and accusations don’t apply here. Using Email, Text, Safari and an App or two aren’t the actions of a ‘power user’.

Let’s get real here. Little problems and bugs are totally acceptable. It’s a new roll-out and there will be some problems to smooth out, connectivity issues, etc. No problem – let’s cut Apple some slack for a month or two. But, when a device is rendered useless over and over again, and Apple Support acknowledges the problem but doesn’t know of a resolution – we have a gigantic problem on our hands.

There are issues that are much larger than the MobileMe problems, the reception issues, the cosmetic issues, and all the other problems that have been getting the TechSite headlines. Ironically, the largest issues with the iPhone 3G (and or v2.0 on any iPhone 1) are barely headlined – yet many people are suffering from them.

As the hundreds of replies to the countless topics at the Apple Discussion forums will show, here are two *major* problems that many Mac and PC users are having:

- There is some sort of bug in iTunes 7.7.1 that causes some sort of ‘authorization’ problem or corruption during a Sync which blocks all media content on the iPhone, even though it is clearly still loaded on there. You click on the iPod icon and see the ‘no content’ screen. This ‘authorization’ issue (wish seems to happen at random) also blocks access to all Apps on the iPhone. You tap the App icon, it loads for 2 seconds, then closes. These are not App crashes or botched content syncs – iTunes is signaling the phone to halt access to all Apps and content – but they don’t tell you why. It also doesn’t give you an error message – they just stop working. Usually a restore is needed to get any functionality of the phone back – but that’s a temporary fix. Until Apple updates iTunes and or the iPhone software, this problem will be back soon. For now, people are downgrading to iTunes v7.7 and have reported success (for now).

- The ALOD (Apple Logo of Death) has been haunting many since the launch of iPhone 2.0. The ALOD usually happens when something goes wrong with an App install (even though the user doesn’t do anything to hamper the install/update). Weeks of trouble-shooting suggest that you should stay away from the AppStore on the iPhone itself, and do all installs, uninstalls and updates via iTunes. A mixture of the two should also be avoided. The ALOD wouldn’t be too much of an issue if all it needed was a reset (restart) of the iPhone to resolve, but the only way to get back into your iPhone after getting the ALOD is to do (yet another) full device restore. I’ve had the ALOD on screen for 2 hours hoping it would load my fully configured iPhone – but it never did. Another restore was performed – there was no other choice (per Apple).

During the last 4 weeks or so, I personally, *had* to do 25+ restores (from scratch ‘as new’) in order to get a working phone in my hands. I was also getting replacement iPhones before I found out what was causing these issues, and before I learned of some workarounds (which don’t always work). I hate that I still can’t fully enjoy my iPhone, or that when I click on the ‘iPod’ icon I can’t help but cringe to see if it’s going to show my media content, or tell me that there ‘is no content’ (even though there are over 5 gigs of content loaded). Stress and anxiety shouldn’t be what one feels when trying to enjoy their $500 iPhone (subsidized or not).

For most people a replacement wouldn’t help as these problems are not hardware related – they’re mostly software related. Unfortunately, many people didn’t realize this until they were on their 2nd and 3rd iPhone. Of course, by that time they’ve noticed drastic difference in displays (and build quality) from one iPhone to another and gave up a perfectly good display thinking their issues were hardware related.

It is at this point that people realize that Apple is using more than one supplier for their iPhone displays (which is normal practice), but the displays are not of the same quality. Warmer versus cooler preferences aside, some of the displays are gorgeous, some are so-so and others are just horrible.

Personally, I noticed some displays that were slightly warmer, suffered the negative black effect, but had good color, blacks and contrast. Other displays had a more cooler tone but lacked contrast and were a bit washed out looking. The worst display I saw had yellow/green tones with a washed out look and also suffered from the black negative effect. These were replacement iPhones over various build weeks. In NY & NJ, the in-store display iPhones (all showing week 26 – whatever that means) all had gorgeous displays with rich color tones, high contrast, whiter whites, and no negative effect.

I was lucky to get a replacement with a gorgeous display and excellent build quality. But there shouldn’t be a huge consistency problem. Getting a ‘good one’ shouldn’t be like winning a raffle. I can deal with little build quality issues, but to me – the display is everything and must be a pleasure to look at since that is what you are doing 100% of the time while using the device.

However, the manic iPhone 3G display phenomenon and build quality issues deserve their own threads – and there are plenty of them!

As far as the major iPhone problems that many loyal Apple customers (such as myself) are having, I have faith that they will eventually come out with a fix (most likely in multiple releases), and we will actually be able to use the features of the phone as they were intended.

Until then, I’ve wiped my iPhone and computer clean, downgraded to iTunes 7.7, use iTunes and iTunes only to install, remove or update Apps, and I limited the amount of Apps that I have installed on the phone (to make the restore less painful and time consuming). I am sure Steve Jobs is not pleased about the problems that many users are having, and I am glad he doesn’t take the same tone as many people do here, and dismiss perfectly valid complaints and concerns (for some bizarre reason).
 
wow, all of you are insane if you think SJ himself actually replies to any of your emails. Yea... one of the richest and most powerful men in America right now sits around on his computer listening to your sob stories and tries to help..... you do understand that that email account probably get THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of emails every single day.... if you actually think he sifts through them you need to get a grip
 
Unfortunately, most problems with the iPhone *are* with and due to Apps (one of the main new features of iPhone 2.0) so why question those who actually use (and need) them? The iPhone is a multifunctional device, and all these functions should actually ‘work’ as Apple tells us they will.

I think the question is if we can tell that it is Apples problem or if we need to get app makers to write code of higher quality. If it is caused by apps, is it not then the maker of that app that has to fix their code to behave better?

It is still a problem for those experiencing it, but I wonder if there aren't a few poorly written apps that may be behind this issue. If it is then it would be similar to ask Apple to fix a memory leak in Adobe Photoshop.

It would be really interesting if someone with this problem would be willing to test is slowly. Use the phone with just the apps on the top 50 list for a day or two, then add on app per day until the problem occurs (assuming you always notice the issue within a day). Maybe there are a few apps to avoid, especially if you have a lot of data and apps on the phone.
 
wow, all of you are insane if you think SJ himself actually replies to any of your emails. Yea... one of the richest and most powerful men in America right now sits around on his computer listening to your sob stories and tries to help..... you do understand that that email account probably get THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of emails every single day.... if you actually think he sifts through them you need to get a grip

Yep, it's amazing to me the lengths people go through to imagine that they had a small connection in some way to Steve Jobs.
 
I think the question is if we can tell that it is Apples problem or if we need to get app makers to write code of higher quality. If it is caused by apps, is it not then the maker of that app that has to fix their code to behave better?

It is still a problem for those experiencing it, but I wonder if there aren't a few poorly written apps that may be behind this issue. If it is then it would be similar to ask Apple to fix a memory leak in Adobe Photoshop.

It would be really interesting if someone with this problem would be willing to test is slowly. Use the phone with just the apps on the top 50 list for a day or two, then add on app per day until the problem occurs (assuming you always notice the issue within a day). Maybe there are a few apps to avoid, especially if you have a lot of data and apps on the phone.
Actually, the bulk of my freezes were caused by one app, I believe - it was a $23.99 Jap-Eng dictionary I purchased with hours of the App Store launching, so it was on my iPhone 3G from day one. :rolleyes:

I reported it to Apple as a dangerous app, then experienced more freezing (silly me, I used the App Store icon on the phone to download/upgrade an app!) and therefore mistakenly concluded that the dictionary app was actually safe, after all. So I installed it again. Within 24 hours my iPhone froze on the ALoD. About a week and a half ago I noticed that the app was missing from both the US and Japanese App Stores - apparently it has been pulled. So I now believe it was responsible for at least some of my freezing issues - I say 'some' because it was hardly a popular app, yet lots of other people are experiencing the same issues. In my opinion there are a number of events which can cause the freezes, which is why some people report being able to recover using various methods (which of course have never worked for me) ...

In any case, I don't think your analogy about asking Apple to fix a Photoshop memory leak is entirely sound - the difference here is that SDK apps are sandboxed, created using Apple-made tools, and have to be approved by Apple before release. While I agree that developers should be responsible for making sure their apps are not buggy, I think the responsibility ultimately lies with Apple. They've chosen to position themselves as the 'gatekeeper' here, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to keep our iPhones safe, as it were.

Finally, @ Sowelu - thank you!!!!! ;)
 
if you had actually read anything about this issue through the link I provided, you would have found plenty of people having to do large numbers of restores.
Unfortunately, some on MR don't read the thread and then make uniformed comments.

This problem is not being exaggerated and the OP is not alone in excessive restores or any other desperate attempts to get their new (and original) iPhone up and running the way it was meant to work. First, click this link below to read just one of the many marathon threads (at Apple Discussions) on the issues that many people (including Technical Professionals) are having, but are being pushed aside due to the MobileMe and 3G Service issues getting all the attention:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1644897

<snip>
Well said.

wow, all of you are insane if you think SJ himself actually replies to any of your emails.
Sure most are made by underlings who sort and answer his mail.

FWIW, some of us have received messages from SJ himself.

Perhaps you should get a Blackberry or Treo if the iPhone causes you this much grief.
Perhaps you should read this thread from beginning to end, plus the references, plus other threads in MR related to this before making an uninformed comment such as this.

Just a suggestion. Up to you. :)
 
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techlover828 said:
you could go back to 1.1.5 until 2.0 becomes more stable.

Can we run 1.1.5 on an iPhone 3G?
 
Actually, some of us have corresponded with SJ in the past. Get over it.


Will the iPhone 3G run on this?

Why the hell you asking us, as you correspond with SJ, I'm sure he'll answer you right away, he's probably waiting for your email. We'll wait for the answer.
 
Why the hell you asking us, as you correspond with SJ, I'm sure he'll answer you right away, he's probably waiting for your email. We'll wait for the answer.
I do not have an iPhone yet, or I would test it myself.

Anyhow, I would not ask such a trivial question such as this.

P.S. I didn't use any of the e-mail addresses that have been listed here on MR. And no, I am not going to tell you what address I used either. :)

I believe you....I REALLY do. :rolleyes:
Sure ya do... :p

I've also corresponded with Guy on some interesting issues as well. Interesting fellow.
 
I believe you....I REALLY do. :rolleyes:

there are over 3500 members viewing the forums as i type this, why is it so hard to believe that the CEO of a company (this "fan site" was built around) wouldn't correspond with it's owners/operators?

he's a man, he's not some omnipotent being.

when i ran computer gaming sites/forums it wasn't all that uncommon for major game developers to pop on in and say a few words or correspond with operators.

gabe newell founder of valve software used to stop by the halflife fan site forums all the time. he's no steve jobs but still.....
 
there are over 3500 members viewing the forums as i type this, why is it so hard to believe that the CEO of a company (this "fan site" was built around) wouldn't correspond with it's owners/operators?

he's a man, he's not some omnipotent being.

when i ran computer gaming sites/forums it wasn't all that uncommon for major game developers to pop on in and say a few words or correspond with operators.

gabe newell founder of valve software used to stop by the halflife fan site forums all the time. he's no steve jobs but still.....
Good points.

Here's what happens in most large corporations. There is a staff that reads and responds to correspondence and e-mails for the CEO. If the CEO desires to get involved and answer some e-mails, then the staff filters messages and forwards ones they feel fit the CEOs parameters and ones that he might be interested in seeing. Same as a call screener for a talk show if you will.

Steve does answer some of his messages. However, most are answered by staff on his behalf because there is simply not enough time in the day.

One of the biggest staffs that I have seen for this purpose, is Fred Smith's of FedEx. He has a large shop of Executive Assistants who handle his calls, which are usually complaints, in a timely manner.

Note, I used the term CEO loosely in my example above to represent all key company and board members.
 
I'm sure Steve Jobs responds to all of his thousands of emails regularly. From his iPhone no less. Because that's an efficient way to answer that many emails.

Either way, I'm sorry to hear you are having so much trouble, and I'm glad you've taken the initiative to try and flag down Apple's main man for some help. Hopefully 2.1 comes soon and helps you (and everyone else) having troubles.
 
there are over 3500 members viewing the forums as i type this, why is it so hard to believe that the CEO of a company (this "fan site" was built around) wouldn't correspond with it's owners/operators?

he's a man, he's not some omnipotent being.

when i ran computer gaming sites/forums it wasn't all that uncommon for major game developers to pop on in and say a few words or correspond with operators.

gabe newell founder of valve software used to stop by the halflife fan site forums all the time. he's no steve jobs but still.....

Because I work for one of the ten largest companies in America. I know how letters and emails to executives, not to mention the CEO, are handled.
 
I've always been interested in finding out what mac and iphone steve uses. Black or white iphone? Or special custom color and 64GB? Does he have three 30" ACDs with a mac pro or does he use a macbook air? Or does he his own special custom made mac tablet?

ahhh...it'll be so interesting to find out!
 
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