Rarely do I see a press release like Apple's recent admission that they have erred in displaying signal strength of iPhones since, well, like forever.

One of the principles of great PR is transparency: a fancy word for being open and honest in all communications.  Yet somehow, Apple has cast themselves as the opposite: closed, controlling and secretive.  When you contrast that with the hallmarks of the Apple brand – simple, easy, approachable – you get a Gordion Knot – a seemingly intractable problem for Apple.

So now when they try to be open and admit a rare problem in their software along with their timetable for fixing it (transparency) the public reaction is one of skepticism: so many years of secrecy tends to build mistrust – yet Apple's brand is one of the most trusted in the world.  On top of that you get this backdrop of Steve's glib public email responses that almost look fake (most aren't as Steve does in fact read all his email personally) and then a response to a response that just makes things worse.

I tend to like the new Apple where Steve says what he thinks, the Apple PR team isn't proactively pitching stories people don't care about, and when the company discovers a flaw they simply say so.  Will that stop class-action lawsuits claiming deception?  No, but it will make for a better relationship between the world's best marketing company and it's customers.

Rarely do I see a press release like Apple's recent admission that they have erred in displaying signal strength of iPhones since, well, like forever.

One of the principles of great PR is transparency: a fancy word for being open and honest in all communications.  Yet somehow, Apple has cast themselves as the opposite: closed, controlling and secretive.  When you contrast that with the hallmarks of the Apple brand – simple, easy, approachable – you get a Gordion Knot – a seemingly intractable problem for Apple.

So now when they try to be open and admit a rare problem in their software along with their timetable for fixing it (transparency) the public reaction is one of skepticism: so many years of secrecy tends to build mistrust – yet Apple's brand is one of the most trusted in the world.  On top of that you get this backdrop of Steve's glib public email responses that almost look fake (most aren't as Steve does in fact read all his email personally) and then a response to a response that just makes things worse.

I tend to like the new Apple where Steve says what he thinks, the Apple PR team isn't proactively pitching stories people don't care about, and when the company discovers a flaw they simply say so.  Will that stop class-action lawsuits claiming deception?  No, but it will make for a better relationship between the world's best marketing company and it's customers.