Over the last decade, we’ve watched the best marketer in the world create incomparably loyal and passionate consumers, which I call evangelists.

And over the last 90 days — and, dramatically, in the last 24 hours — we’ve watched the same company inexplicably sabotage itself and actively undo a lot of its hard-earned consumer goodwill.

A quick summary of the last 45 days:

1. In response to that lost or stolen iPhone,  investigators seize the computers of the top editor of one of the most popular tech sites on the Internet. No confirmation of Apple’s involvement here, only suspicion.
2. Ellen airs a parody that “the people at Apple didn’t think was funny.” It’s apparent Ellen is forced to apologize.
3. Adobe’s Flash undermines Apple’s own iTunes store, so Apple simply excludes one of the most prevalent video technologies on the Web, rendering nearly all non-ITunes online television programming and movies useless on the iPad and iPhone. Here’s a fine piece about what else may be behind Apple’s exclusion of Adobe Flash.
4. Apple allows a product with an obvious and dramatic defect to make it to the consumer market. If you you touch the lower-left corner of the iphone, and cover one of the antennas, you lose your wireless signal.
5. In response to customer complaints Steve Jobs reportedly says, “This is a non-issue” And in another email: “Just avoid holding it that way.”

This is a blog about marketing consumer electronics, and Apple is often the model for the very best marketing there is. So while none of the above is helpful to building good feelings among consumers, the first three items can at least be justified: Apple was entitled to know what, if any, wrong doing was connected to its iPhone prototype turning up at Gizmodo; Apple didn’t want Ellen’s parody to mislead its consumers; and Apple is entitled to decide what technologies it wants operating on its platforms. These are valid justifications to surprisingly bad marketing from Apple.

But I want to focus on the last two developments, which have happened over the last day.

Stunningly, Apple allowed the iPhone 4 to hit the market with a terrible problem: hold the phone the wrong way, and lose reception. There are countless online videos demonstrating this issue. It affects what appears to be most iPhones sold so far. It happened, and if you’re Apple, it’s a crisis.

Now let’s talk about the incredible response from Steve Jobs. A lot of people would like to believe he didn’t write those emails, but they have been reported by technology and mainstream news outlets. By saying this is a non-issue, and to simply hold the phone differently, Jobs is telling his customers, who love Apple enough to write the CEO personally; many of whom revere him; many of whom go to war defending and promoting Apple on message boards, blogs, and the real world:

1. Don’t be ridiculous.
2. Your concern is invalid.
3. You don’t have a right to be disappointed or angry.

Which is shocking, of course, because the iPhone ceases to function as a phone when held in a way that many people hold their phone.

More shocking: that the single best marketer in the world is not only disenfranchising his fans, but actively angering them. Steve Jobs doesn’t have to be upsetting his customers and fans. He is choosing to. These are beyond unforced errors.  These are self-inflicted errors.

Saying nothing would have been far less damaging.

I’m going to leave comments open as long as they’re thoughtful and courteous.