Apple iPhone ad deemed misleading by UK regulators

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Apple iPhone ad deemed misleading by UK regulators

An Apple television ad for the original iPhone misled customers, ruled the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), a regulatory body in the United Kingdom. BBC News reports that the ASA received two complaints concerning the statement that “all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone.” The group said that because the iPhone lacks support for Flash and Java, the claim was misleading. Apple has argued that the claim referred to the availability of webpages, rather than their specific appearance; however, the ASA said the spot “gave a misleading impression of the internet capabilities of the iPhone” and must not be aired again in its current form. “Because the iPhone doesn’t support Flash or Java, you couldn’t really see the internet in its full glory,” said Olivia Campbell, a spokesperson for the ASA. “They made a very general claim that you can see the internet in its entirety, and actually that’s not quite true - so we’ve upheld.”

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Comments

1

Are the UK & USA ads the same? And what do the USA regulators say about the ad?

Posted by Simon on August 27, 2008 at 6:36 AM (PDT)

2

Quite right. When are they going to ban the mac and PC fud aswell?

Posted by fanman on August 27, 2008 at 6:49 AM (PDT)

3

I want them to get in trouble for constantly hammering the “Half the Cost” line in all their ads.

It’s only half the price for qualified customers… yet there is no disclaimer at all. Every time I see that ad I get mad.

Posted by ort on August 27, 2008 at 7:13 AM (PDT)

4

So any device that doesn’t support Flash, Java, Silverlight, ActiveX, HD Quicktime movie trailers, and RealPlayer, or even a custom, site-specific plugin, can only show “some parts of the interent”?

Posted by Muero on August 27, 2008 at 7:39 AM (PDT)

5

@ort: Don’t forget about the “twice as fast” crapola they’re feeding us.

Posted by Dave G on August 27, 2008 at 9:01 AM (PDT)

6

I am sure their UK ads carry a caveat along the lines of “Network speeds may vary/be less than advertised”...

EDIT:
The ad has just been on TV and sure enough it has the following right at the end -
“Network performance will vary by location”

Posted by Bob Levens in UK on August 27, 2008 at 10:48 AM (PDT)

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