I complimented Apple for admitting its Maps app was crap in my latest column for Advertising Age, and made the point that acknowledging reality was an important lesson for brand marketers. The comments I got from readers fell into two buckets: People who felt that admitting fault in a PR crisis was standard operating procedure and, second, folks who hate Apple and concluded I was a “fanboy” for not perceiving Apple’s evil intentions.

It isn’t, and I’m not.

It’s often said that the key to effective crisis communications is to get the bad news out quickly and completely, but few businesses do so. Though I’ve advised employers and clients to deal with bad news this way, I’ve never seen a study that said the numbers backed up the approach. Maybe that’s why it’s now common in the political world to double-down on bad news, even in conflict with all evidence and reason, instead of admit fault.

But I don’t really care about crises as much as I’m interested in long-term brand integrity and value.

Consumers live in a continuum of information. The Internet links what brands did and customers experienced in the past, thereby providing a framework for whatever occurs in the present (and a guide to what will occur communications-wise in the future). Most brands ignore this reality, assuming that whatever they claim now will be considered in a perceptual vacuum. The past is past, whether filled with product successes or failures. Nobody is going to remember that the last tech product was a flop, or that the new one looks like the successful last one. The empty promises of the previous ad or social media campaign? Yesterday’s news. Brands are born anew every day.

Not.

Apple acknowledged the reality of its product performance when it admitted that the Maps app wasn’t ready for primetime, which put it in great stead for being more believable when it comes back to us with an improved version (or any other new product). It was believable only in that the statement could stand on face value; there was nothing to trust, no brand promise to keep. It acknowledged the reality that consumers will decide whether or not the next thing coming out of Cupertino is any good.

I’m at pains to name other brands that have recently done the same, yet I can easily count the brands that have given the market products or services that are less-than-perfect (if not horribly inferior). As I said in my Advertising Age piece, think of all the content we’ve got from energy or fast food brands that presumes we’re wholly unaware of what they do for a living, or what they’ve done or told us in the past. I pondered that other brands could follow Apple’s lead and not only acknowledge the things we already know, but skip waiting for a crisis to do so.

As for the “fanboy” jab, I guess I’m not surprised by the virulence some people feel about Apple’s success. To some, there’s just no good reason to explain it, so there must be some weird alchemy of sinister marketing, sleepwalking media, and gullible customers that yields the company’s successes. I don’t understand it, other than as an automatic corollary to the passionate, unsubstantiated love that others feel for the brand. Nutty is as nutty does.

But their anger keeps them from understanding what’s really going on, and we shouldn’t let the nutjobs on either end of the spectrum hijack an important conversation (about anything, right?).

Apple fails all the time. It renders software programs, connecting plugs and entire CPUs obsolete when it decides to upgrade its offering, which comes across as somewhat random and pernicious to me. At worst, it seems like a blunt way of prompting more sales, which I think it utterly inexcusable. Its offering is never a complete homerun and it often falls far short…or presumes to get too far ahead of consumers. Mac minis have no CD drive? There’s no way to change iCloud from being the default drive for iWorks files? The DRM on iTunes limits access to my songs across devices unless I choose to pay extra? Apple fixes bugs with every OS update.

It’s not news that Apple or any other brand is imperfect. We human beings are imperfect. What’s interesting is when we get things right, and the Maps fiasco is one such example. Too bad so many folks, like brands, aren’t able to acknowledge reality and thereby learn from it.