Hot on the heels of the yellow dot non-issue and the antenna death grip non-issue comes a new non-issue about Exchange not working right. Apparently some nerds at MIT experienced difficulties with iOS 4 and Microsoft Exchange. Now the story is just starting to gain some traction on sites like ZDNet. Some people say that they lose all their Exchange Calendar appointments when they upgrade. Others say that their mail doesn’t work, or the phone keeps going out trying to download messages and can’t get them and then your battery runs down. Or something. I haven’t actually read the reports.

The truth is, there is no problem with Exchange on iOS 4. It works great. In fact, Exchange works better on iOS 4 than on any other platform. It just flies. It’s amazing.

Unfortunately I can’t tell that to our customers until someone writes me an email complaining about it. Because this is now the only way I am allowed to communicate with the world outside Apple. Someone writes to me, and I write back, and then that person gives that email to a blog or something, and everyone passes it around, and this is how Apple does things now. Don’t ask me why. Katie says people like when the answer comes from me personally, even though it doesn’t really come from me personally, it comes from someone who works for me personally, and of course everyone knows this but they all pretend that they don’t know it because they want to believe that they live in a world where they can write to Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs will write back to them, personally.

So anyway, would someone please work up a quick email so that I can respond to it and tell everyone that there is no problem? Correct form on your complaint email goes like this: Start out by groveling, and saying how much you love Apple and how amazing the new phone is, then state the nature of your problem in a way that is both awkward and unclear, then grovel a bit more and ask me to fix it. I will send back a terse, cryptic response telling you that you’re wrong, and that there is no problem, and/or that you should just switch to a different kind of email, no big deal.

Namaste, true believers, and as always, thank you for your help in spreading the good word.

It’s a pretty safe assumption that if you’re reading this blog, you’ve seen “The Matrix.” And you may or may not remember the scene where a kid explains to Neo that the trick to bending a spoon with your mind is simply to remember that, “There is no spoon.”

So it is with marketing. One thing I learned very early in life, thanks to intentional overuse of psychedelic drugs, is that there is no reality. As a guy at the commune once put it: “The reality is, there is no reality.”

So some guy says his iPhone 4 is having reception issues. I say there is no reception issue. Now it’s his reality against my reality. Which one of us is living in the real reality?

There’s a two-part answer: 1, there is no real reality, and 2, it doesn’t matter.

The only thing that matters is which reality our customers will choose to adopt as their own.

Of course most people would rather live in a reality where everything works and there are no problems. And now, thanks to me, that reality exists. Because I’ve created that reality for them.

Probably the biggest thing I’ve taught the team at Apple is that people never know what they’re supposed to think about anything. This is true in Hollywood, in the book business, in the art world, in politics. And especially in technology.

So we put out a new phone and everyone is sitting there wondering what they should think about it. What I realized many years ago — and honestly, it still amazes me — is that most people are so unsure of themselves that they will think whatever we tell them to think.

So we tell people that this new phone is not just an incremental upgrade, but rather is the biggest breakthrough since the original iPhone in 2007. We say it’s incredible, amazing, awesome, mind-blowing, overwhelming, magical, revolutionary. We use these words over and over.

It’s all patently ridiculous, of course. But people believe it.

We demo FaceTime, and we say that nobody in the world has ever seen anything like this before. Jonny and I act stunned and gob-smacked, as if we ourselves still can’t believe that we’ve just invented video chat.

Again, this is utterly untrue, a total and absolute lie. But people accept it. They hoot and cheer for us.

The other strategy we use comes from Zen Buddhism. You ever study Zen koans? Most of them make no sense at all. You read them and you go away feeling confused and stupid.

We do something similar. We call it “clouding.” Right now, for example, we’ve sent out the following messages about iPhone 4 and the antenna issues:

1. All mobile phones have this problem.

2. Our mobile phone does not have this problem.

You see how this works? These two statements cannot both be true.

Yet we’ve said both of them. And now you don’t know what to believe.

Ask any psychologist what happens to people when they get confused. Their heart rate goes up. Their skin temperature rises. Adrenaline starts to flow.

They feel desperate, and scared, as if they’ve fallen out of a boat and now they’re getting tossed by waves and they’re maybe going to drown.

Now all you have to do is reach out with some kind of certainty, and no matter how obviously untrue it might be, people will latch onto it.

Every religion in the world knows this, from the Catholics to the Scientologists. It’s the oldest trick in the book. You create some uncertainty, you put people at risk — you tell them they’re going to hell, or whatever — and then you hold out the answer.

No matter how ridiculous your answer may be — like, the one about the galactic ruler Xenu, or the one where God turns into a bird and flies down to earth and impregnates a virgin — people will accept it.

Not only that, they’ll actually thank you for feeding them this horseshit. Because any certainty, no matter how crazy, is better than uncertainty.

Which brings me back to iPhone 4 and the antenna issue. Right now you’re confused. You’re worried. You don’t know what to believe. You just wish someone would come along and tell you that everything is squared away and there’s nothing to worry about.

Well, stay tuned for that. And remember: There is no spoon.

First for the good news — he says no matter how hard he tries, he can’t reproduce the antenna problem. But then instead of concluding, correctly, that there is no problem, Pogue does a 180 on us and says since other people seem to be having this problem and even making YouTube videos about it, then it must exist.

He suggests we created the bumpers because we knew about the antenna problem: “You know, I’ve thought that bumper was bizarre from the moment Apple introduced it.”

He suggests I’m an asshole for telling people to find a new way to hold the phone: “Avoid holding it that way!? Seriously?”

He arrives at a scary conclusion: “Considering the hysteria that surrounds the phone, combined with ignorance about the nature and probability of the problem, it could wind up being a huge black eye for Apple and the phone.”

You are on thin ice, David. Very thin ice.

Well the extortionists at Gizmodo are working overtime to create the impression that there is a genuine problem with reception on iPhone 4. Check out this lame “article,” for example, which includes the photo at right. They’re suggesting people should do things like wrap a rubber band around the phone or paint some nail polish on the stainless steel band or put some tape there. And now, of course, some asshole (cough Google cough) has made one of those Hitler videos where Hitler is pissed about the antenna problem. And of course some other assholes have started a rumor that we’re preparing to send out a software fix for the problem, maybe this week.

Let me just say this again. There is nothing wrong with iPhone 4. Nothing. There is no antenna problem. In fact, reception on iPhone 4 is 10 to 100 times better than on iPhone 3GS.

All you need to do is hold the phone the right way, and you’re good to go. We are not going to put out any fixes, because no fixes are needed. I’ve already said this, but I just want to keep on saying it so that people will get the message: We are not going to “fix” the new phone, because there is nothing to fix.

I highly recommend that people check out what John Gruber has been writing on Daring Fireball, because, as usual, he’s getting it totally right.

Says John:

My best guess at this point is that the issue pops up in areas with spotty 3G coverage. With nothing covering the antenna, the improved reception of the iPhone 4 gives you more bars, maybe even up to 5. But when you cover the antenna in these areas with poor coverage, the phone is unable to get a strong signal. I’ve seen several reports from people who can reproduce the problem, but only from certain locations.

He’s exactly right. It’s all about your location, and the quality of the 3G signal there. It has nothing — nothing — to do with the phone.

Am I being clear on this? There is nothing wrong with the phone. Okay. This is all just FUD getting kicked up by Microsoft and Google and Gizmodo.

So everybody is up in arms now after it turns out that iPhone 4 can’t pick up signals when you’re holding it in your hand, because the band around the phone is the antenna and if you’re touching the antenna it screws everything up.

First of all, this is not a big issue. If you’re experiencing this, most likely it’s not the phone at all — most likely you’re just living in a place where there’s bad reception, in which case the solution is simple: you need to move.

Or maybe you’re living in a place with good reception but you just need to buy a bumper for your phone and/or wear latex gloves while holding the phone.

Or you can try going bare-handed and just learn how to hold your goddamn phone properly. Either way, it’s no big deal. As I’ve already told like a thousand fucking people who have written me personal emails today, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the antenna on iPhone 4. There is no design flaw. The phone is perfect. It is a magical and revolutionary device. It changes everything. Again. Just keep telling yourself that. If someone gives you shit because you stood in line for six hours to get a phone that can’t make phone calls when you’re holding it, just change the subject and tell them about the awesome retina display.

Anyway, for those who need a tutorial on how to hold a phone, just go to this page on Gizmodo, where they show you how to do it. And yes, it galls me to link to Gizmodo, but it also galls me that we have to teach people how to hold a mobile phone. I mean it’s not like we’re the only ones whose phone goes out when you hold it in your bare hand. All mobile phones do this. Have you never noticed?

Meanwhile we’ve got losers out there pretending they’re the dorks from MythBusters, conducting experiments on iPhone 4, like this:

And, worse yet, Katie says the dicks at the New York Times are working on a big scary story about this non-issue for tomorrow’s edition. We’ve reached out to Sully Sulzberger, the publisher of the Times, reminding him of the very special relationship we have with the Times and assuring him that the last thing we want to see happen is for that relationship to be damaged in any way.

Meanwhile, others are piling on. Engadget says it’s “bad design” and we should give out free bumpers to everyone. TechCrunch says our suggestion that people simply learn to hold their phones differently is “a bit unreasonable.” AllThingsD says if it’s really true that all mobile phones have this exact same problem, “why haven’t we heard complaints like this about `every wireless phone?’ Why hasn’t RIM issued instructions for a proper BlackBerry handhold?”

The answer, of course, is that RIM doesn’t care about customers the way we do. Honestly, what other company has a billionaire CEO who will sit at his desk for hours and hours personally answering thousands of emails, one after another, telling people how to hold his product? And can I tell you how hard I am fighting the urge to suggest to people that they try shoving the thing up their butt and see what kind of reception they get then?

And then there’s the yellow screen thing. That’s a straight slap in the face from the bastards working on the production line at Foxconn. Don’t get me started, honestly.

And just start using your real title, which is “Bitch.”

Recently I got some heat when I said that I don’t want to see us descend into a nation of bloggers. I was called clueless because hey, blogs are the future, right? These bloggers are the bright shiny new media barons who are going to take over the world and kill the New York Times, and they’re going to show those stodgy old media dinosaurs how it’s done, and dance on the graves of the old guys, blah blah blah.

Flash forward to today, when Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, arguably the most successful tech blog, hints at a conference that he wants to sell his company. (For added pleasure the photo above shows digi-tool Robert Scoble recording Arrington’s every precious word for posterity.)

The truth is, Arrington been trying to sell TechCrunch for years — at least since 2007 when he hired Heather Harde, an M&A guru from Fox Interactive, and named her CEO of TechCrunch. Back in those days Mike was full of talk about that big “liquidity event” that was right around the corner. Supposedly all the big brands were coming to him and begging him to sell. Now it’s three years later and he still can’t unload the thing.

Why is that? Why would every media company in the world look at this thing and pass on it?

Could it be — gulp — that TechCrunch really isn’t so great at making money?

Surely not. Why, it must make mountains and mountains of cash.

Why else would Michael Arrington want to sell it so badly?

Right?

Ah, but if you really want to get a glimpse into what deluded buffoons these bloggers are, you have to read Henry Blodget’s idiotic “offer” to buy TechCrunch. Henry says he’s all in, wants to buy TechCrunch, because “SAI + TechCrunch = World Domination.”

Just one problem. Henry doesn’t have any money. And, as he puts it, “equally sadly, we doubt Mike has the mountain of cash that we would demand to allow Mike to do a clever reverse merger.”

In other words: My world dominating business has no money, and neither does yours, because that’s how world dominating we are — we’re both so broke that neither of us can buy the other.

But clever old Henry has a solution! Some “Daddy Warbucks” will come along and invest a huge amount of money into SAI so that SAI can buy TechCrunch. Well, of course that will happen! Because what investor wouldn’t want to put a bunch of money into a dead broke blogging company so that it can overpay to get its hands on another dead broke blogging company?

Here’s clueless fuckwit Henry:

Our Daddy Warbucks partner is going to form a new company and stuff it full of cash. Then Daddy Warbucks is going to write Mike a colossal check for TechCrunch. Then he/she is going to write us a colossal check for SAI. Then he/she is going to merge both TechCrunch and SAI into the new company called World Domination, Inc., give us a bunch of equity, and then sit back and get rich while we do all the work.

Good Lord. Watching these guys play at being businessmen is like watching developmentally disabled midgets going at it in a wrestling ring. The mind reels.

The only thing that will make this more entertaining is when fellow digital media baron Jason Calacanis jumps in with some brilliant business advice of his own. Or better yet — maybe Calacanis can make a no-money offer of his own to rival Henry Blodget’s no-money offer, and then we’ll have a bidding war!

Honestly, people, how did Henry Blodget ever make a living as an analyst on Wall Street? But somehow he did. And now he’s convinced some poor sap to invest in his blog, which, several years in, still can’t find a way to make money.

Solution: Buy someone else, and dig a bigger hole!

Of course, Blodget did end up getting thrown out of Wall Street and banned for life. So maybe markets really are rational after all.

He already erased his libelous post last night. To all involved: Well done.

The answer has been right here in front of us, all along. Guns.

In case you missed it, the sweaty weasel came out and said some untrue and unkind things about the iPhone. Something about needing to buy four chargers to keep the battery from dying on him, and having to install a land line “so I can actually make phone calls.”

Katie has been in touch with Elliot Schrage and the rest of the team at Facebook. Our feeling is, everyone’s entitled to an opinion, but that opinion must be based on facts, and this stuff about battery life and not making phone calls is just not factual.

It’s a lot like the situation we had with Ellen Degeneres, where she was claiming that iPhone is difficult to use when of course it is not at all difficult to use.

In Ellen’s case we simply needed to remind the networks that carry her program of the very special relationship that we have with all of them. We just explained how special that relationship is to all of us, and how fragile it is, like a tiny glass Christmas ornament, and how it has to be nourished, like a delicate little seedling plant.

So, same with us and Facebook. Either the Christmas ornament, or the little seedling. Either way, we’re pretty sure the little weasel will post a correction soon. Or, since it’s Facebook, they’ll probably try to walk it back in stages:

1. That’s not what Mark said.

2. That is what Mark said, but that’s not what he meant.

3. Mark regrets that people misunderstood what he said, even though that’s not really what he said.

4. Mark says okay, he only bought three iPhone chargers, not four, and he might have installed a land line anyway, just because it’s a good idea to have one, so he cannot really blame that on the iPhone, so are you happy now? Can we all just move on with our lives? Jesus! Thank you.