Apple Insists Lebanese Villages Were Never On The Map, Just Like Every Blackfella Town Before 1992

CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA – Apple has responded to global outrage over missing Lebanese villages on Apple Maps by deploying a defence strategy Indigenous Australians say sounds weirdly familiar.

In a statement that has been called “a masterclass in cartographic innocence”, the trillion-dollar company explained that the roughly 300 villages missing from southern Lebanon were in fact never there to begin with because the newer, more detailed Apple Maps experience is not currently available in that region.

First Nations academics have noted the logic is identical to the one used on Aboriginal Country for about 234 years.

“Terra nullius but make it tech,” said one Indigenous geographer, rubbing her temples. “We’ve literally heard this exact line from surveyors-general. ‘Oh that wasn’t a town, that was a gap in our data.’ Mob been on that Country 60,000 years. Same energy, different century.”

Lebanese diplomat Mohamad Safa has described the omission as potentially amounting to “digital ethnic cleansing” and threatened legal action, while Apple has maintained that its mapping decisions are based on “data availability” rather than politics.

An Apple spokesperson defended the company by saying the issue was a simple case of priorities.

“Look, we mapped the inside of every Cheesecake Factory in California down to the toilet” said a senior product lead. “Lebanon’s just on the list. Same list Palestine’s been on. And West Papua. And most of the Torres Strait. It’s a very long list mate.”

The company has promised a more detailed Maps experience will roll out to Lebanon sometime between “soon” and “after the bulldozers stop”.

Apple insists the blank space is not a statement. It’s a feature.