The first iPhone 3G reviews are out, written by the New York Times's David Pogue, the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg and USA Today's Ed Baig. Those men are three of the four reviewers who got a prerelease review unit of the original iPhone last year.
The fourth lucky reviewer was Steven Levy, who until a few months ago, was Newsweek's top tech writer. Scuttlebutt says that Newsweek paid Levy a generous buyout so he would leave, in order to reduce headcount. Levy has since joined Wired, where he is a long-time contributor, as a staff writer. Wired doesn't have the mainstream reach that Newsweek and the other publications have, and, let's face it, most Wired readers are probably going to buy the new iPhone anyway.
So, no review unit of the iPhone 3G for Steven Levy, but Newsweek has another big-name Apple-watcher. The weekly recently hired Forbes senior editor Dan Lyons (AKA Fake Steve Jobs) to be its head tech writer.
Presumably Apple would be excited to get its product splashed on the front page of Newsweek again, even if it's someone else writing the review, right? Not necessarily. First, Jobs may not appreciate Lyons's Fake Steve Jobs blog, which has been merciless in its skewering of Jobs and Apple, Inc. If he isn't a FSJ fan, the real Steve Jobs could easily blacklist Lyons from getting access to products and executives.
Additionally, it's fairly common knowledge -- or at least speculation -- that Forbes is on Apple's shit list over a story from long ago that said former Apple CEO Gil Amelio would save the company by buying BeOS. A week after that story came out, the company bought NeXT and brought Steve Jobs back to the company. The rest, as they say, is history. As a result of that story, Forbes reporters aren't given special access to company execs or advanced access to review products, claims the New York Times. However, whether Apple believes Dan Lyons is still tainted by his long-time employer is unknown.
But can Apple ignore an important mainstream magazine? Unlike at Forbes, where Lyons had a relatively limited readership, Newsweek reaches a much wider audience. It's been rumored -- but never confirmed -- that Steve Jobs hand-picks who gets access to prerelease review-units. It would seem to be bad juju for Apple to ignore a wider-read publication like Newsweek like they did Forbes -- though don't think for a second that Jobs wouldn't do it.
I mean, he created the friggin' iPod. Have you heard of it?
Then again, a simpler -- but far less entertaining -- explanation is that Lyons came to Newsweek too late to get a review copy. The announcement that he was hired came in mid-June, just a few weeks before the iPhone 3G was introduced. Lyons hasn't really started at Newsweek yet -- in fact, he has a column dated July 21 (from the future -- yay, print!) in Forbes. Perhaps Apple didn't give Newsweek a phone because Lyons isn't in place to review it.
I am leaning toward a tale of intrigue, backstabbing and blacklists. Surely, this is more likely than a simple staffing snafu, right?
More news, commentary, and predictions from The Industry Standard:
- Prediction: Apple will ship 10 million iPhones in 2008
- Prediction: 3G iPhone jailbroken within a week
- Analysis: Independent gaming could flourish on the iPhone
- Analysis: The big merger of 2008: The mobile phone and Web
- Analysis: Apple's most important WWDC announcement: GPS on the iPhone
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