Advertising regulators in the UK have ruled that one of Apple's iPhone television commercials mislead customers and ordered it banned from further broadcast.
That assertion was misleading, they said, because the iPhone does not support Flash or Java, two proprietary technologies that sometimes prove integral in the display of certain web pages.
When contacted by the ASA, Apple said it built the Safari web browser on the iPhone using open standards, and that it could not reasonably assure compatibility with every third party plug-in or technology on the market.
The Cupertino-based company also argued that the reference in the ad to "all parts of the internet" was simply aimed at highlighting Internet site availability, not to every aspect of functionality available on every website.
The ASA noted Apple's argument that the ad was about site availability rather than technical detail, but considered in its deliberation that the claims "Youll never know which part of the internet youll need" and "all parts of the internet are on the iPhone" implied users would be able to access all websites and see them in their entirety.
"We considered that, because the ad had not explained the limitations, viewers were likely to expect to be able to see all the content on a website normally accessible through a PC rather than just having the ability to reach the website," the watchdog said in a statement. "We concluded that the ad gave a misleading impression of the internet capabilities of the iPhone."
Specifically, the ASA ruled that the ad breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rules 5.1 (Misleading advertising), 5.2.1 (Evidence) and 5.2.2 (Implications). It has banned the commercial from further broadcast in its current form.
Readers interested in the backstory to Flash and its absence on the iPhone should check out AppleInsider's three-part series Flash Wars.
173 Comments
Agh... I'm sure they'll just reword it to something which basically means the same thing but is immune to these cry-baby complaints.
It appears that no phone, or browser, can make the claim that they handle "all parts of the internet".
Nothing to see here..... move along.
As a web designer, I con't consider Flash and Java as native web languages ? when I feel particularly picky, I barely consider them web languages at all. Plus I'm the essence of Apple fanboyism (if that's a word), and I'm outraged. Really, I am.
Time for these people to get a life!
The right approach to fixing this issue is to stop people using Flash and Java on their websites.