The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that an iPhone ad claiming access to ‘all of the Internet’ is misleading and must not be aired again in the UK. This comes as part of the continuing backlash against Apple since its release of the iPhone 3G.

This ruling came after 2 separate complaints about the facts of the commercial which purported that, “all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone.” The complainants took issue with this statement because the iPhone 3G’s Safari browser supports neither Flash nor Java. Since many sites use these technologies to provide much of their functionality, the watchdog group has called the ad misleading.

Apple took exception to the ruling, countering that the Safari browser they built for the iPhone was built to support open standard. Their defense was that since Flash and Java are not open source that they should not be required to support them as it would be impossible to provide support for every 3rd party product on the Web. However, since the advertisement overstepped the device’s actual capabilities, the ASA ruled against Apple in the matter.

This comes less than a week after a class-action lawsuit against apple in the US over the iPhone 3G’s data speed. In that case, an Alabama woman filed suit over Apple’s claims that the iPhone 3G is, “twice as fast for half the price.” Since 3G networks are not always available and may be congested, the woman is claiming damages in court and calling the iPhone defective.

Apple is seeing a major backlash from consumers since the iPhone 3G which has experienced dropped calls, poor data connectivity and a hastily applied firmware update since it was released in July. Many of the connectivity problems attributed to the iPhone 3G may actually be due to mobile carrier issues, however Apple’s sterling reputation has been tarnished and it must now reclaim the hearts of consumers in the media.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 8:53 am under Apple, Cell phones, Retail.

Read more entries by Dave Jeyes.
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