Wednesday, August 27, 2008 -- 1:28 a.m. -- on my couch

Well, Apple, I told you that you should have put Flash on the damn iPhone. Now look what's happened.

Thanks so much to caller Kim in the U.K. for the great heads up on this ... The U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority ruled than an Apple ad (called an advert across the pond) cannot air again in its current form because the ad can't deliver what it promises.

What is it that it can't deliver? Apparently, the complete Internet. The specific claim that caused the problem was "all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone."

Nope. The advertising watchdog says all the parts of the Internet are NOT on the iPhone, specifically Flash and Java. Because the Internet that we all use off the iPhone contains Flash and Java and the iPhone can't show pages rendered with either, the claim just doesn't hold up.

Apple disagreed, arguing that its claim referred to availability of webpages, rather than their specific appearance.

The ASA said the advert "gave a misleading impression of the internet capabilities of the iPhone," according to the BBC and consequently "it must therefore not be aired again in its current form."

"Because the iPhone doesn't support Flash or Java, you couldn't really see the internet in its full glory," said Olivia Campbell, a spokesperson for the ASA.

"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."

Apple had no comment to the BBC.

Hmmmm. I think Steve should go downstairs, get some warm milk and call Adobe ... time to get some Flash action.

And be careful with the next ad ... don't go promising fast 3G or decent battery life or non-buggy software. Because if you do, you know the ASA is going to take those down too.

What do you think? Overboard? Overblown? Funny? Sad?

Personally, I think it's telling that an advertising standards agency in the UK realizes that the iPhone's claims tend to be a little misleading.

Thanks for calling.

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Think that's classic- wish we were that stringent over here about advertising claims as a whole. Good for them and they're right when you consider that the iPhone is touted and renowned for its internet capabilities. No question it is the most capable mobile internet device out there but it isn't a FULLY capable internet device. Even the "twice as fast and half the price" claim is slightly misleading when you factor in the comparative monthly costs of the 1st vs 2nd gen phone. Guess they can claim that only refers to the flat purchase price- wonder what ASA says or thinks about that claim?

SCOTT's REPLY: I agree. Oh yes ... there's plenty more misleading in the whole thing. I wonder if they'll dig any further.

"What do you think? Overboard? Overblown? Funny? Sad?"

All of the above. Surely there are bigger/more important things that they need to watch out for?

SCOTT's REPLY: Indeed!!

Great! Why can't we do that hear. Take ALL misleading ads off--what be much left on!

SCOTT'S REPLY: LOL.

Uh, careful with your title there Scott. It's an ad for the iPhone, not Apple TV. Personally, I think that it's a bit of bull that the ASA nixed the ad. But, if I recall correctly, wasn't this a first generation ad? This doesn't irk me near as much as what the Chinese government's been up to, but it's still ridiculous.

SCOTT's REPLY: Fixed it, Sam, thank you ... so unintentional, too. I meant TV ad by Apple and didn't realize until you pointed it out that it read as Apple TV and that the word iPhone wasn't in the headline. After a full day of writing compelling headlines for a print product, you would think I could do better on my own blog :-D

Either way, I don't think any government should get involved in things like this, but it just sends such a strong message that folks don't buy the whole Internet in your pocket thing when you can't get to so many Web sites.

This ad is for the first generation iPhone. So basically they are asking for Apple to stop playing an ad they stopped playing last year? This blog gets annoying.

SCOTT'S REPLY: Speaking of things that get annoying, annoyed. You come to mind.

If I might make a suggestion ... go back and read the story. And if you don't understand it, come back and ask and someone will explain it to you.

I've got dual citizenship in the US and United Kingdom. I used to think this was overkill (except for travel in Europe- that UK passport sure comes in handy!). But, now, I must say I feel proud to be a UK citizen. Finally someone with meaningful authority has the balls to stand up to Apple and say "enough!"

SCOTT'S REPLY: "Finally someone with meaningful authority has the balls to stand up to Apple and say 'enough!' "

You mean besides me? :-D

The ASA is not part of the government

SCOTT's REPLY: Forgive me ... I'm sorry that my lack of knowledge of the UK is showing here ... I see that it's a watchdog and not a government entity.

Thank you for clarifying!

The ASA isn't really the government, it's an independent body that regulates advertising. It's there to protect us by making sure companies don't make false claims on their adverts. It is absolutely right for them to take misleading adverts off the air, I wouldn't expect any less of them.

And anyway, why is government intervention such a bad thing? Without EU intervention, we would still be paying utterly extortionate international roaming rates here in Europe. The telecoms commissioner is currently trying to tackle the data roaming market, which is so expensive it's laughable. With her intervention prices may be lowered by a factor of 100. Without her we would continue to be ripped off.

SCOTT'S REPLY: So glad you took the time to explain it ... I sadly don't know as much about the UK as I should considering my international audience. Yeah ... the roaming rate example is a great reason why government intervention can work, but over here it's always seen as the government poking its nose into something else that it shouldn't, but done right, it's definitely a good thing.

Flash on the iPhone would be GREAT - especially since I'm a web-developer and always have to take blackberry and iphone flash issues into account. The 3 problems I see with using flash on iphone, which probably explain why it's not available yet:

1) size - flash is basically a big movie that lets you interact with it - the files can be huge, thus...

2) processor - they need a lot of processor to work properly - a lot of code and a lot of loading are required for these to work. A normal computer has a large processor - the iphone has a very small processor. It just can't handle it without overheating or breaking down / freezing.

3) rendering - when you zoom in and out by pinching, I think you can cause some issues with the flash interface. I haven't really done enough research about how that technology works, though, to be sure if it would affect flash.

So - to argue for the agency - it's not the full internet cause it really can't handle flash. To argue for Apple - there are computers I've been on that don't have flash, and most websites have the option of making an HTML mirror of the flash website (something I do for my flash webpages).

I have to say, though - i'm siding with the agency here - it's not a full web experience if you can do something on another machine that you can't do on iphone. simple as that.

SCOTT'S REPLY: Really great insight from someone who has experience, Mike. That's not something I would have been able to offer my readers, so I appreciate you taking the time to do so.

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