If you own even a single Apple product, or associate with someone who does (and the only way this wouldn't be the case is if you live on a planet called Blarthon VII), then I'm sure you've heard at least one person complaining about their new mapping application, launched in conjunction with iOS 6 and the iPhone 5.
Just in case you don't know what's happened (and I'll keep this brief), Apple replaced Google Maps with their own competing application on all new iOS devices. This was inevitable at some point, though the big problem came when people started to realise that it didn't work. Like, didn't work to the point you might end up in the Pacific Ocean if you used it.
Of course with any company of Apple's size releasing anything these days, you're going to have to accept criticism. It's just human nature that we want to pick everything apart. And it's usually the case that the bigger the company, the more people that are willing to complain about something they do.
So as soon as Maps was released and people realised how poorly it performed in comparison to Google's product it replaced, the proverbial floodgates of hate and negativity were opened right on Apple's doorstep.
Sure, it's not perfect. Sure, if you ask it for directions to your nearest Starbucks you may end up waist-deep in a canal, three towns away. But it's not as if the application goes around screaming anti-Semitic remarks at people - it's really not that bad.
While I'm sure someone at Apple is locked in a basement being tortured for being the one to sign off on releasing their maps app before it was ready, at least there is one thing the company can take away from this fiasco which could be considered a positive.
You see, while Apple have millions upon millions of fans around the globe who will staunchly defend their products with an almost religious zeal, there's a large portion of the general population who still see them as a faceless giant; stubborn and cocky to the point they'd never even consider admitting something they had created wasn't perfect, let alone as utterly unfinished as Apple Maps is.
And to a certain extent, I think those people are right. There is a large part of me that believes there's no way Apple would have issued a press release telling their customers to download a different map application if Steve Jobs were still in power. They're not exactly big fans of admitting they've done something wrong.
But now that they've done this, it's going to slightly change the minds of certain people who only saw the company as a massive ball of arrogant stubbornness that make clean and boring TV ads. To put it exactly as my technologically-backward building manager said to me this morning, "Isn't it great they've finally admitted they're not always right."
"Isn't it great..."
Right there you see the beginning of a positive association where before there was probably only negativity.
Apple never need to reassure me to buy their products. While I don't consider myself a total fanboy, I own enough of their shiny gizmos to get slightly nervous if I would ever have to consider replacing my iPhone with a similar product from another manufacturer. Like most of us fleshy humans, I'm a creature of habit and I'll keep buying things with the fruit logo on them until I love something else enough for me to warrant changing.
And it's a fact that this mindset is shared by most people who own their products. I don't know anyone who would get rid of their loyalty to the brand - or their new iPhone - simply because they screwed up one app they'll eventually fix for free.
However, for that percentage of people who held off buying an iPhone, Macbook or iPad because they didn't want to send their hard-earned cash to that faceless, humanity-devoid corporation, this might be a tipping point that makes them think slightly differently. Because for once, they've actually shown some humanity by publicly uttering that magic word: "Sorry."
So in the end, what may seem like a PR nightmare for the company may actually result in them receiving a small image change in the eyes of those who were set that Apple was nothing but an evil entity who would never admit they have flaws, regardless of how small they are.
In short, another group of people who never would have bought one of their products may now be closer to being swayed to do so.
And so, the juggernaut with the fruit logo rolls on...