In the past couple years, the internet has become ripe with Apple bloggers, watchers and analysis. Everyone hangs on Steve Jobs every word and watches closely for Apple’s next move. Sites like MacRumors and AppleInsider, but firstly Think Secret, have all become immensely popular as the pass-time has grown. But today I came across a piece of “analysis” on Wired that just seemed to push a little farther than the others.
The Wired piece actually employed linguistics experts along with their copy editing staff to analyze emails that purportedly were sent by The Steve Jobs… They compared the emails to those that had been corroborated to be “real” emails and analyzed the grammatical nuances of the emails to determine if they are real. (see for yourself: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/09/steve-jobs-e-ma.html)
Now, I’ll admit, I read it. I read it top to bottom, every word. But I was left with the strange sense that maybe the fanatical behavior has gone a little too far. I’m just like every other Apple fanboy, waiting for the next hat to drop, but this article just hit me wrong. Who is to say that the Apple PR staff didn’t draft the three corroborated emails and that the emails being analyzed aren’t Steve’s own habitual grammar errors. But more importantly, what does it matter? Ultimately, until a product announcement is made at an Apple event and until a product is launched or software update is issued, its meaningless. We won’t have it to hold and use and love and… you get the drift.
The company is readily able to innovate and create the next IT product and its hugely successful. So, I say let them do that, but quit analyzing Sir Steve’s emails…. please…. Only the writer and receiver will ever know whether they are real – and track record shows, he’s not talking (except maybe through email — sorry, I had to).
