Is Motorola Faking Addresses in Its Ads?

BY EVAN THOMAS ANCHOR LOGAN TITTLE More map app mayhem, this time from Motorola Mobility. The Google-owned company’s latest jab at Apple is raising eyebrows. You can go places with the new Droid Razr, the ad says. Or you can get iLost. But AppleInsider says there’s a problem with the address Motorola chose to make its point. “315 E 15th Street is not an actual address in Manhattan. 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.” And at the same time, CNET reports that Marlborough Road address Apple is displaying is technically accurate. A representative from Brooklyn’s Borough Hall told the site East 15th Street was renamed Marlborough Road back in 1905. And as long as we’re on technicalities: It’s all kind of a moot point, since the address doesn’t actually exist. “One thing can be said, however, about all this: Apple Maps probably won’t get anyone lost on the way to 315 E. 15th Street because no real person (except those writing about this issue) will actually be looking for that address.” A writer for VentureBeat has a different take. Since the exact address isn’t a place, this ad could be seen as merely a test of each app’s semantic interpretation abilities. Google can at least extrapolate an address in the low 300 block of East 15th street in Manhattan. “Those are precisely the kinds of user affordances that a real-world product needs, because in the real world not only do users input imperfect data, the world — big shocker coming up here — actually changes.” Apple, meanwhile, says it’s working on improvements to its software. According to the company, “the more people use it, the better it will get.”