UK: misleading advertising to access the Net on the iPhone?

An advertisement praising the merits of the iPhone on access to the Internet mobility is considered misleading by the Advertising Standards Authority, observer of good advertising practices in the United Kingdom.

After being praised for months, the iPhone of Apple is facing a volley of criticism from increasingly severe. While the USA is preparing a complaint to collective action because of problems receiving 3G terminal and that the slogan “Twice as fast, twice cheaper” does not correspond to reality, it is now the United Kingdom being openly critical part of the marketing campaign dedicated to this smartphone.

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority), an independent verification of the good practices and responsible advertising highlighting abuses, said that advertising (also aired in France) that the iPhone can access the Internet with the same opportunities that a desktop computer is misleading.

A matter of interpretation

The advertisement states that “all constituents of the Internet are in the iPhone.” However, the ASA believes that this assertion is likely to deceive the public because the iPhone does not support Flash and Java technologies, widespread on the Internet.

For its part, Apple said that this statement was referring actually to access the web pages in general, not only Web pages optimized for mobile., But that does not support proprietary technologies. However, this explanation is not enough to the ASA which requires that advertising is no longer broadcasts in the state.

The iPhone which does not flow promised (if not the bride distributor who voluntarily access to its network, as was discovered by cross-site experiments and iPhon.fr vis-à-vis the operator Orange in France, which acknowledged the facts since then and has promised to provide data rates more in line with its own advertisements), the iPhone which does not allow access to all features of the Internet, contrary to what said its advertising … Is there not first put too many hopes in this phone?

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