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Oh Em Pee! Giant Android tinkles on Apple in Google Maps graffiti
Golden shower for fruit-bitten icon
Updated A huge Google Android robot urinating on an Apple logo in Google Maps seems to have summed up the rivalry between Apple and Google fans.
The cartoon can be found at these co-ordinates tucked away in Pakistan. Register staffers were able to access it at the time of publication.
While vulgarity is a subjective matter, the image could well be considered offensive, and is unlikely to have been a sanctioned Easter egg. Rather, it's probably a little bit of trolling slipped in by some cheeky scamp through Google's public submission system for map annotations.
@earcos @monchote It's a user submission, by the way. pic.twitter.com/Xq5pqpheQR
— Pascal Hartig (@passy) April 24, 2015
Another image, some miles to the east of the Android one, declares "Google review policy is crap."
Fair comment
As the Dude would say, they're not wrong. We should perhaps be glad that nobody thought it necessary to illustrate that one with a similarly literal image. ®
Update
A Google spokesperson contacted us after publication of this article to apologise: "We’re sorry for this inappropriate user-created content; we’re working to remove it quickly. We also learn from these issues, and we’re constantly improving how we detect, prevent and handle bad edits."
The offending scribblings were scrubbed from Google Maps as of 19:27 UTC.