After three years of complaints, tech giant Apple, Inc. acknowledged two major Whidbey Island errors on its mobile map program this week and promised to have at least one of the problems fixed within two months.

Island County Commissioner Helen Price Johnson broke the news late Thursday afternoon with a call to The South Whidbey Record, saying she’d been contacted by a company representative and assured the Langley issue was being addressed.

“He said it would be fixed before May 1,” Price Johnson said.

The Whidbey error is also being tackled, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether it would be fixed within the same timeframe.

Apple Maps, a navigational program that comes built-in to mobile devices and laptop computers, currently says Langley and Whidbey Island are both located on Hat Island, a small, privately owned isle located in Possession Sound between Everett and South Whidbey. Directions to either destination instruct drivers to take a small passenger-only ferry from an Everett marina to the tiny 1.5-mile-long by half-mile-wide island, also known as Gedney.

Apple’s media department has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

Exactly how long the errors have existed remains unconfirmed, but it appears their origins may stretch back to 2012 when Apple stopped using Google Maps for its mobile device program. Several Whidbey residents and one Bainbridge man said they’ve reported the issues to the company dozens of times but with no results.

Langley City Councilman Thomas Gill is one of those who’s been complaining about the problems, which he says have been present for three years. He’s reported many issues, and some concerning business locations have been fixed, but he’s never had any luck with the Langley error.

“Trying to get Langley and some parks moved has been like pulling teeth,” Gill said.

The Record published two stories on the issue in February, one concerning the Langley error, which was picked up by at least one Seattle TV news station, and another about the Whidbey error. But it appears it was a letter from the commissioners that finally did the trick.

The board agreed Wednesday to authorize Price Johnson to contact Apple and ask that the inaccuracies be addressed. The rep said the commissioner’s request had been received and that technicians were working to correct the errors.

Many other letters sent from members of the public and other government organizations following The Record’s coverage were likely a major contributor as well, she said.

Whatever the case, the important thing is the problem has finally been acknowledged and is in the process of being addressed, she said.

She noted that the Apple representative pointed out that searches for specific addresses and businesses work fine, that only broad searches for “Langley” and “Whidbey” were inaccurate.