News

UK Yanks Misleading iPhone Ad

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 9:10 AM - by

The U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has blocked one of Apple's iPhone commercials from airing in the country because it claimed that the ad offered misleading information about the combination iPod and smartphone's features. The ad stated that "all the parts of the internet are on the iPhone," but the ASA contended that without Flash and Java some parts are missing, according to the BBC.

ASA spokesperson Olivia Campbell commented "Because the iPhone doesn't support Flash or Java, you couldn't really see the internet in its full glory."

According to the ASA ruling the commercial "gave a misleading impression of the internet capabilities of the iPhone," but Apple disagreed. Apple claimed that the statement in the commercial referred to the ability to view Web pages without making any promises as to how those pages would look.

The ASA didn't buy Apple's argument, so its ruling stands for now. Apple has not stated if it plans to modify the ad for U.K. viewers so that it can air again.

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Sir Harry Flashman said:

member since 08 Feb 2007 with 792 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:16 am

It isn't just Flash and Java, there are websites that are not accessible to desktop Macs running Leopard.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:10 pm

Why just Flash and Java? What about Silverlight and Adobe AIR? Those are "parts" of the Internet somewhere too, aren't they?

This is ridiculous.

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Partsmutt said:

member since 16 Nov 2004 with 28 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:07 pm

I thought it was fairly obvious what Apple was saying. You can access normal web pages instead of the special "mobile versions" of websites that you often get when browsing via a cell phone. That complaint is obviously from someone, likely an Apple hater funded by a competitor, to poke Apple and make life difficult. No news story here folks, just someone being a p.i.t.a.

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