What happens when Apple stumbles with a product release? The competition take advantage of the opportunity, of course. One such example is everyone from Nokia to Samsung poking fun at the failure of iOS Maps. Apparently there is only so much iSheep can take because they are now hitting back, accusing Motorola/Google of using a fake address in the recently-featured #iLost ad to make Apple look bad. Too bad they are wrong.

AppleInsider published an article today claiming the “315 E 15th” address in Manhattan, New York City Motorola used in their #iLost ad is a fake address:

A public park sits on that side of the street, making none of the block’s odd numbers a valid address. The number will never be a valid address in Manhattan.

So… a park in that location means it is not a valid address? Yeah, okay.

To be fair, the point AppleInsider is trying to make is there is no building or structure of any kind at 315 E 15th in Manhattan, nor is the address of the park 315 E 15th — so no one in a real-life situation would logically search for that address. However, to accuse Google of faking the address to make iOS Maps look bad is nothing but a butthurt iSheep knee-jerk reaction to attacks on their master, Apple. Indeed, 315 E 15th in Manhattan is a real address; if a structure is ever put up in that location, it will most likely be known by that address. An unused address doesn’t make it fake.

The author of the article goes on to mention that iOS Maps does indeed find 315 E 15th in Manhattan — you just need to search for “315 E 15th Manhattan” instead of just “315 E 15th”. So apparently everything is fine when iOS Maps shows a “fake” address.

To make things even more comical, the author insinuates it is better for iOS Maps to show a wrong, outdated address in Brooklyn when looking for 315 E 15th rather than Google Maps showing the “fake” Manhattan address:

So why would anyone actually be “looking for 315 E 15th” in New York? The only reasonable reason would be to locate an actual address that does exist in Brooklyn (which is also part of New York City), in an area where a series of numbered streets between East 11th and E 16th now have assigned names.

What was apparently once the 300 block of East 15th Street is now named Marlborough Road. Five blocks away, Marlborough Road turns into E 15th Street, where numbers begin on the 800 block. So Apple’s Maps returning a location on Marlborough Road when searching for East 15th Street isn’t nearly as absurd as Google’s ad portrays.

Now I understand that blogs aren’t necessarily first-class journalism. (Heck, I know dotTech isn’t.) So I don’t expect a blog to have the neutrality I expect from news sources like CNN or BBC; I understand if a blog is naturally bias towards a company, topic, or product. So if AppleInsider wants to be pro-Apple, go for it — who am I to say otherwise. What pisses me off is when a someone/something tries to act like it is neutral when it clearly isn’t. In the case of the above-mentioned AppleInsider article, the author tries to portray some sort of journalistic neutrality by seemingly admitting that iOS Maps does have its issues:

Apple’s new Maps service certainly isn’t without flaw, making the fake address goose-chase that Google invented to create its Droid “iLost” advertising even more surprising. Why not just point out a real address that Apple’s Maps can’t actually locate?

The author then proceeds to point out how iOS Maps cannot properly locate a location in Japan when written in English but can find it when written in proper Japanese; how “across the dozens of real international addresses I [the author] checked, Apple’s new map service only failed to locate one of them in Copenhagen; and how “in locating a friend’s house about a hour south of Vienna in rural Austria, I [the author] noticed that when zooming down to the detailed street level with satellite photos on, the aerial images shifted from color to black and white, but they were still detailed enough to clearly identify houses”. So iOS Maps is bad… but it really isn’t. Nice one.

Oh and in case you were wondering, aside from pointing out iOS Map “flaws”, the author attacks Google Maps in the article… because we all think Google Maps is perfect and AppleInsider has to set the record straight (*rolls eyes*).

Before I sign-off this article, let me mention how absurd it is that people are getting upset over an advertisement. Ads, by definition, are supposed to be one sided. Marketing wouldn’t be marketing if it didn’t take the truth and show it in a way that is favorable for the company running the ad. As long as a company doesn’t outright lie in an ad, then everything is fair game. If you think Apple doesn’t employ such marketing techniques then you are a bigger iSheep than I thought anyone could be, and if you expect Google/Motorola to run ads that are not tipped in their favor, you are naive. It is one thing to be critical of advertisements; it is another to throw a tantrum. And, yes, I realize that some may consider this article a tantrum, too. Guess what? I don’t care.

[Image via dgies]