iPhone 3G: all your Internet parts are not belong to us

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 27 August 2008 07:31

Mobility

Oops - the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has banned an Apple iPhone 3G ad claiming that “all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone” after two complainants pointed out the iPhone lacks Flash and Java. Good decision or bureaucracy gone mad?

Uh-oh. Apple’s just had one of its ads for the iPhone 3G banned in the UK by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for being misleading, claiming full Internet capability when “parts” of it (Flash and Java) are demonstrably not (yet) available on Apple’s currently shipping, unmodified iPhone.

The ASA website lists the decision on its adjudications page, and starts off by describing the television advertisement in question, created by TBWA London, as follows:

“A TV ad, for the iPhone, showed the phone in someone’s hand and a finger switching it on to reveal the menu page. The finger touched the weather icon showing the forecast for Cape Town and then navigated through a Heathrow Airport area map, a Safari icon, hotels and stock market webpage. 

“The iPhone rang and the hand was shown answering it.  During the ad, the voice-over said " You never know which part of the Internet you’ll need.  The do you need sun cream part? The whats the quickest way to the airport part? The what about an ocean view room part? Or the can you really afford this part? Which is why all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone".  The ad ended with on-screen text that stated "iPhone. Only on O2".”

Hey, wow. The Internet has a sun cream part! And an ocean view room part. But Apple wasn’t expecting the Internet to have a “Can Apple really afford to put misleading ads on TV?” part, as it has now discovered.

The issue, noted by two viewers, is that they “believed the claim that all parts of the internet were accessible was misleading because they understood that the iPhone did not support Flash or Java, both integral to many web pages”, and quoted the BCAP TV Advertising Code sections 5.1, 5.2.1 and 5.2.2.

After querying Apple on the claims and complaints, the ASA received a reasonable response that unfortunately didn’t wash. I guess the parts didn’t add up!

Anyway the ASA says that: “Apple said the aim of the ad was to highlight the benefit of the iPhone in being able to offer availability to all internet websites, in contrast to other handsets which offered access to WAP versions or sites selected by service providers.

“They believed that surfing the internet with an iPhone was similar to surfing from a home or office computer and the appearance and the websites that could be visited were the same.  They said this was different from accessing the internet using an ordinary mobile phone handset, which often only allowed the user to visit WAP-enabled sites that were simplified versions of the websites. 

“They said they understood that some mobile service providers limited the range of sites available to subscribers or only allowed them to visit the WAP versions; they said the iPhone, which was only available through one service provider, had 'full' internet access.”

What else did Apple say in its defence, and how did the ASA describe its decision to ban the ad? Please read on to page 2.