Am I alone in finding the signatures that the iPhone and iPad append to emails sent from them to be annoying?  Admittedly, I also find this behavior to be annoying with email sent from Blackberry devices.  I do not disagree that there is value in an email signature–telephone numbers and mailing addresses are handy to have from time to time.  A signature telling me the device you are using, though, offers little value.  In a reply to an email, the device signature is just cluttering up the message thread.

Do we really need to know what device you used to reply to my email?  Furthermore, do I need to see it in every reply in an email thread?  The same behavior is not done when I use the fat-client on my desktop, and it is certainly not done when I happen to use my Blackberry.  Imagine how annoying it would be if every reply to an email contained my standard email signature.  Better yet, imagine email replies containing “Sent using Outlook 2007.”  This issue has been exacerbated by the preponderance of iPads being used at the most senior levels within my corporate master, and an email I received this weekend was the last straw.

By all means, show off your overpriced iPod Touch groundbreaking computing device, but do us all a favor: turn off the signature that says “Sent using my device of the moment.”  Your signature is doing nothing but displaying an overbearing sense of pretentiousness and self-worth by advertising your device as a status symbol to the rest of the “unwashed masses.”  So, please, turn it off!