A new report details an alleged secret internal letter from Apple, which states that Apple employees aren’t allowed to service Macs running Lion developer betas or iPhones running iOS betas, and also leaks the release dates of both in the process of telling Apple employees when they can service products running iOS 5 and Lion.
The document, partially pictured above, is entitled Apple Certified Technician Handbook, and supposedly comes from Tim Cook, who reportedly sent it out to Apple Retail employees.
The report comes to us from TechNetec, who likely fabricated the document and the story, but claim that they received it from an Apple Authorized Technician (who, of course, asked to remain anonymous).
The document in question lacks a signature of any kind from Tim Cook, uses a cheesy and off-center “classified” stamp that was likely pulled from someone’s library of clip-art (or pulled from the internet), and is presented in the first paragraph as addressing you, the customer, and not the Apple employee the letter was supposedly sent to. The first paragraph reads as follows:
In order to better service Apple Products, Apple will now be keeping track of when and who services your Products
Both pages are also riddled with grammatical and structural errors, and it’s very unlikely that Tim Cook would have released it in that state. Of further suspicion is the claim that the document is entitled “Apple Certified Technician Handbook”, when the document appears to be a stand-alone letter, and seems not to be a part of any handbook at all.
I’ve only scratched the surface of what is wrong with this so-called memo from Tim Cook. Long story short, it’s obviously fake. Nevertheless, those release dates are certainly a possibility, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on their accuracy.
P.S.: TechNetec’s only defense of the document’s authenticity is an easily-edited “author” field within the document’s details:
Just to show you, that we didn’t fake it, here’s the info. Clearly says “Apple” under Author.
Your thoughts? Sound off in the comments!
