Jon Stewart skewers Apple over iPhone 4G debacle

And the lost iPhone scandal rolls onwards. Last night, Jon Stewart, the host of the Daily Show on Comedy Central, used a few moments of his nightly monologue to rip Apple for its handling of the iPhone fiasco – and to poke fun at AT&T, which provides sporadic-at-best voice and data service for iPhone users in Stewart's (and this reporter's) hometown of New York City .

“I know that it’s slightly agitating that a blog dedicated to technology published all that stuff about your new phone," Stewart said. “I’d be pissed too, but you didn’t have to go all 'Minority Report' on his [expletive]." Stewart was referring to Gizmodo, which obtained a test version of the forthcoming Apple iPhone 4G. This week, California police raided the house of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen in search of additional information; Chen has hired a lawyer.

"I mean, if you want to break down someone’s door, why don’t you start with AT&T, for God’s sake?" Stewart added. "They make your amazing phone unusable as a phone.” Zing! As we have written before, AT&T has been besieged with complaints from iPhone users in recent months, who claim that the expensive smart phone performs poorly in high-density urban areas such as New York and Los Angeles.

AT&T-bashing is something of a sport at Comedy Central. In early April, as iPad fever reached its peak, the comedian Stephen Colbert brought a brand new iPad on set, and used it to make salsa. The iPad has the same touchscreen technology as the iPhone, Colbert pointed out, and the same apps. “And just like an iPhone, you can’t make phone calls with it," he joked.

Actually, Stephen, that's not exactly true. A company called Truphone recently published an app giving iPad owners the power to wield their gadget like a giant iPhone. According to Truphone, all VoIP calls to other Truphone, Skype, or Google Talk users are free; you have to fork over five cents a minute to call landlines in the US.