It would make perfect sense for the Apple people to review this thread. Unfortunately, if you try to refer them to it, you will be told something like this: "we don't have the technical capability to look that up." Others have tried to no avail to get their techs, who keep insisting that this can't possibly be an Apple-generated issue, to simply review this thread or at least take a quick look at it to see that it has nearly 100k views and therefore seems weird that they claim to have "never heard of this."
Yes, the low level Apple techs apparently do not have the ability to do what any 10 year old can do using an Apple product like an iPhone: browse to a web page. I would not be surprised if instead of actual computers at the first level Apple tech work stations, there are simple 8.5" x 11.0" cards that say:
- Tell the customer that they are the first person to ever report whatever problem it is they are reporting.
- Ask the customer what type of account they are syncing with (Google, Exchange, Yahoo, etc.) or what other non-Apple software they are using.
- Assure customer that whatever problem they have can only be generated by (insert name of provider or software customer identifies in Step 2)
- Tell customer to factory reset their iOS device.
What borg22222 is doing (and sort of live blogging here) is the right thing to do. Get your case escalated. Ensure it is escalated to Engieering Technical Support. Get a case number. Refer the Engineering Technical Support staff to this thread (they will look it up later).
You should also be aware that the primary goal of Apple tech support....and most company's tech support divisions is to "handle calls" not actually resolve problems. Your first-tier Apple rep's main mission is simply to convince you that whatever problem you have is due to anything on Earth other than Apple and to get you off the phone so they can do the same thing to the next caller and so on....
In any case, regardless of whatever BS your Apple Care phone rep tells you, rest assured there are people at Apple who are: 1) actively monitoring this thread; and, 2) fully aware of widespread reports of this bug.
One thing that may "motivate" Apple to get their act together and fix this would be if just a single online news source reported this problem. That would give true public exposure to the issue, and would ensure that 100's of thousands of users who are experiencing the issue might decide to call in and ask about it. People who have it and just haven't noticed it will notice it and call in, and those who don't have it yet will get concerned about it (as they legitimately should be) and might call in. To that end, you can submit tips about this to several online tech news sources using these links:
9to5mac.com
http://9to5mac.com/contact/
appleinsider.com
http://appleinsider.com/submit_story/
cultofmac.com
http://www.cultofmac.com/ (This is the home page. "Send Tip" link is at far right at top of page. It generates an E-mail)
Direct E-mail for tips news@cultofmac.com
Gizmodo.com
Send E-mail to tipbox@gizmodo.com
Describe the bug, and reference this discussion thread...and that it has nearly 100k views as of today...which indicates this is a widespread issue that a lot of people are searching for and finding the thread as a search result.
If even one online tech news reports on this you can guarantee this will get fixed sooner than later. If a tech site sees multiple "tips" about this they will investigate it.