Report: Latest Jobs iPhone 4 Email Exchange Is Fake

Earlier today, Boy Genius Report published an exclusive “conversation” in which Apple CEO Steve Jobs allegedly told an iPhone 4 customer upset by the phone’s antenna issues to “Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it.” That response and the rest of the email thread predictably sent the tech press into a tizzy, spawning dozens of articles and blog posts. Thing is, Jobs apparently never said it.

After the initial flurry of resulting blog posts, BGR amended their report to say that the last “Retire, relax” email message didn’t come from Jobs, but was actually sent by the upset iPhone customer who was apparently mocking Jobs’ tone (oops). Now Fortune’s Apple 2.0 blog is reporting that Apple PR says that the entire exchange is a fake, and that Jobs didn’t send any of the messages.

To make matters even more interesting (and bizarre) AppleInsider reports that someone was actually shopping this email exchange around before it appeared on BGR.

Of course, Jobs frequently does engage in email exchanges with customers, and he has said some pretty condescending things about the iPhone 4’s reception issues — last week he told one upset customer to “Just avoid holding it that way“.