“All the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone.”
That was Apple’s claim in a British TV ad for the iPhone, and it proved controversial.
Two people complained to the watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), claiming that the ad wasn’t actually true. And after an investigation, the ASA has said they were right, and that the ad misled customers.
Why? Well, quite simply because the iPhone doesn’t include any proprietary software like Java or Flash in its Safari browser, so web pages seen on the iPhone might look different to those seen on a computer.
Olivia Campbell, a spokesperson for the ASA, told the BBC:
"Because the iPhone doesn’t support Flash or Java, you couldn’t really see the internet in its full glory. 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."
Because of the ruling, the ad cannot be shown again in its existing form. There was no comment from Apple.
