Slashdot Mirror
iPhone Web Claims Draw Governmental Rebuke in UK
Wills writes "Apple has been running an iPhone ad saying 'all parts of the internet are on the iPhone', but it had to be withdrawn after Britain's Advertising Standards Authority ruled that it gave 'a misleading impression of the internet capabilities of the iPhone' because the iPhone cannot access Flash or Java – features that are essential to some websites. This raises an interesting issue of where do you draw the line between essential and non-essential features of websites. What should the web look like? Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?"
but not in the pleasant way one would think.
why do supposedly intelligent fellow overhype a clumsy device?
Smile, don't click...
The ad repeatedly says you can get the whole 'internet', not just the web.
Apple, I want gopher dammit!
"the iPhone cannot access Flash or Java - features that are essential to some horribly designed websites."
Fixed.
When I hear the phrase..
'all parts of the internet are on the iPhone',
I tend to think I can access just about anything. I think expecting java or flash to work isn't asking much yet that's not available so I do think saying 'all' is a little misleading.
I think a simple re-wording would get their point across and yet not be invalid.
Knowing nothing about iPhone I have to ask, can it run a newsreader client? p2p client?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
It doesn't really raise that issue as the ad didn't say it gives access to "essential" parts of the internet. It said it gives access to *all* parts of the internet.
The cake is a pie
From the summary: "Apple has been running an iPhone ad saying 'all parts of the internet are on the iPhone'"
followed by: "This raises an interesting issue of where do you draw the line between essential and non-essential features of websites. What should the web look like? Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?"
What the hell does that have to do with anything ? I didn't RTFA but it sounds like the problem is that they said that ALL parts of the Internet are accessible via the iPhone ... not "all but flash and java" ... which has nothing to do with "essential vs. non-essential", what-so-ever. Sounds like a simple case of false advertising to me.
It's probably false advertising (flash and java are part of the web and they aren't accessible from an iphone). It may or may not be the governments place to step in depending on how they deal with television regulation. Does the FCC handle false advertising at all? How is false advertising handled other than by consumer law suits?
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
It's not "the government" deciding what the Internet is.
For a start the ASA are an independant organisation, their remit is to ensure advertisers don't tell porkies in their ads. They usually work after complaints from the public.
In this case Apple has mislead the public. Many consumers use Flash and Java sites and deem these to be "the Internet".
the web != the Internet
Holy non sequitur batman!
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
Considering how obnoxiously ubiquitous Flash has become on the web - and how many sites you can't view without the sexiest version of Flash - it is no surprise that people are angry that the iPhone doesn't do Flash.
But on the other hand, there are plenty of other configurations that don't do Flash, either. Really most Linux distros don't do Flash to the satisfaction of plenty of Flash-only sites. And of course Flash doesn't care about people using Lynx or anyone with impairments that makes it difficult to use a mouse.
However, as much as I'm not an Apple fan myself, I would say really the fault likely belongs more to Adobe. They have chosen to develop Flash in a way that allows third-rate web designers to use it instead of genuine code, while simultaneously giving a big middle finger to those of us who don't meet the compatibility requirements for the newest version.
Perhaps with some luck, some significant good could come from the iPhone - people will start writing more non-flash sites (or at least non-flash versions for those of us who cannot or will not use flash).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?"
Should Apple?
After all, it can't run Silverlight or look at the Democratic convention videos.
Plus it doesn't do mouseover/hover/tooltips -- pretty basic javascript. It's a cool device, but I find I have to re-engineer my websites to fit the iPhone's capabilities. Sure, the web may morph so that it will fit onto the iPhone, but for now I agree with the original article.
I couldent care less about flash and java, more media support would have been nice.
(I have an iphone, what it does well it does very well, what it does badly it does very badly. Typical Apple and typical mobile in my opinion).
Oh and the ads ARE misleading.
Well, Bart, your uncle Arthur used to have a saying: "Shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out."
Source:http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/about/
The iPhone App store better get cracking on those Archie, Gopher and WAIS clients.
And they should require that all websites be submitted in frontpage format to government authorities.
P.S. Slashdot sucks.
That isn't raised unless you think it's quite alright to claim that a Prius is an "all terrain vehicle" (as long as 'all terrain' doesn't include deep mud, steep unpaved hills and stuff like that).
This isn't about the government making the decision that "this or that is an essential feature of websites", it's about Manufacturer A claiming that Product B can do Feature C when obviously it cannot do Feature C but only a subset of that feature.
Lying to sell your products is not allowed in the UK. It may be in the US or elsewhere in the world, but this is about the UK. And in the UK they have this pesky law about not claiming your product can do things that it cannot do.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
The Advertising Standards Authority is an independent advertising industry body; it is not government funded, and is not a 'government authority'.
The article summary states:
"This raises an interesting issue of where do you draw the line between essential and non-essential features of websites. What should the web look like? Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?"
I'd argue that this situation really has NOTHING to do with that! The only "issue" here is really simple and straightforward. Is it ok to advertise that your product is capable of accessing ALL parts of the Internet, when in reality, it isn't?
All Apple has to do to correct this commercial and "clear" it for viewing is to qualify their statement in some fashion, or maybe re-phrase it. What's so bad about saying "The iPhone is capable of accessing MOST parts of the Internet.", or flashing some small text at the bottom of the screen with as asterisk in front, saying "Some 3rd. party Internet technologies such as Adobe Flash and Java not included."?
"All parts of the Internet are on the iPhone" could be construed to mean "The entire Internet is on the iPhone." Not only does this mislead the buyer into assuming that their iPhone has enough storage to hold the entire Internet, but implies that bricking an iPhone would result in the bricking of the entire Internet and destruction of the global economy.
I don't see this as government interference as much as a continued suspicious advertising approach by Apple. I questioned their strategy after they ran those commercials that suggested their computers were free of security issues. Am I the only one who's been concerned about Apple's misleading advertising before now?
I didn't hear or see the word "all" the internet anywhere in the ads. "...Just the internet...on your phone". Am I seeing the same ad as all of you are?
What?
Please point us to Ubuntu's internet advertising campaign.
You do realise what this story is about don't you?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
This raises an interesting issue of where do you draw the line between essential and non-essential features of websites. What should the web look like? Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?"
Or perhaps we should leave it up to corporations to make the decision according to whatever criteria they see fit, no matter how misleading the result may be. "I have here a coffee mug. It gets all of the internet [for my particular definition of all of the internet]".
Let's be clear, this isn't a matter of the government dictating what constitutes the internet, this is the judiciary making a ruling as to what the current common perception of the internet is. It is not laying down a definition, but rather making a judgement (as judges are expected to do) as to whether Apple's particular idiosyncratic definition of "all of the internet" differs sufficiently from the current average public definition so as to be misleading. We're not even talking about "essential internet" here; the Apple ad said "all".
In short, this isn't the government dictating what the web should look like, but rather the people. If the judge believed that most average UK citizen could reasonably interpret "all of the internet" to mean the same as what Apple apparently does, there would be no conflict.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Here's one instance where I generally don't mind the government being a little heavy-handed. I wish that the US government would go after every company that advertises an 'unlimited' plan that has a cap. If you're going to use words like 'unlimited' and 'all' you should probably mean it. 'Unlimited' is probably easier to sort out than 'all' since there are plenty of fringe technologies in regards to the internet, but I think flash and java is widely used enough to draw the line.
Ideally I wish that the government wouldn't have to do this since it does spend taxpayer dollars and everyone would be a good consumer and do some research or avoid companies that have a tendency to flavor their advertising to make it seem as though you're getting something that you're really not. Of course, most of the world is horrible at taking the initiative to check into what they'll be buying. It's probably not quite so bad when it happens with an iPhone, but if people are advertising a $300 cure for cancer, there are enough stupid people who'd fall for it without even thinking to check the treatment out at all.
I suppose we could all write letters to the company and anyone who's a shareholder could express their distaste towards dishonest advertising, but the next Slashdot article will probably be posted soon and it might be interesting; and I might be able to get first post! I guess I'd better not bother with that letter, writing my government representatives, leave my comments on a consumer information website, or anything else that might help to make an actual difference.
What should the web look like? Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?
"What the web should look like" is irrelevant to the question of the iPhone's capabilities. The fact is that a non-trivial chunk of the web *does* use Flash and Java, so the question of whether ignoring that constitutes misrepresenting the iPhone's capabilities is indeed a question the Advertising Standards Authority should answer.
"Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?""
The Advertising Standards Authority is not a government authority. It was established by the Advertising Association, a trade body representing (from the wiki) "advertisers, agencies, media and support services in the United Kingdom" The ASA's introduction on wikipedia reads:
This is how most media watchdogs in the UK are run. Important facts like this should really be checked before making very flawed summaries. For if Apple wanted, they could simply ignore the ASA's ruling. Most carriers would probably refuse to run the adverts, but it's most certainly not a "government decision".
This raises an interesting issue of where do you draw the line between essential and non-essential features of websites.
Which is exactly the wrong question here. The ad actually stated "Which is why all the parts of the internet are on the iPhone". It doesn't say all "essential" parts of "The Internet" are on the iPhone.
It's very clear this is a misleading statement, as the iPhone can't possibly support everything on "The Internet". The most obvious retort is that with the "The Internet" doesn't consist of just websites accessible via a browser (or a few apps packaged into the iPhone). The statement is simply patently ridiculous, as "The Internet" isn't really a tangible thing, but rather a means of communication that's changing on a daily basis. It would be impossible for any single device to do that.
AccountKiller
When you have web sites like target that are exclusively on flash, flash becomes an essential part of the web.
Like it or not, there are plenty of web sites that have no content without flash installed.
Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?
To the extent that the government has the job of enforcing the truth in advertising laws, yes, they should be making that decision.
The navel-gazing questions about "What is the internet?" and other techno-philosophical issues probably shouldn't be made by the government, at least not as laws or restrictions. But to the extent that "we" (the more-or-less civilized world) are a society of laws, sometimes those questions will have to be answered -- even if unsatisfactorily -- in order for the legal/governance system to work.
I'll admit to being biased myself -- I think advertising is generally too misleading and given too wide of a berth to make claims that sound like factual claims but in reality are too murky to have their truthfulness tested.
What should the web look like? Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?
Britain's government isn't making the decision as to what the web looks like. It is saying that Apple's claims are false advertising.
I wish my government had such strict rules about advertising. Here in the US a consumer can't complain, only the advertiser's competitor. So if all the car companies are claiming a hundred miles per gallon, none complain, and the customer is screwed.
Apple should change their ads. Simple enough, "all HTML web sites". It has the aded benefit of not having customers complain that their favorite flash sites won't work.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
"All parts of the Internet" should mean all reachable machines over all reachable ports. Whether it has a web browser or not is immaterial - if I can "telnet xyz port nnn" for any legal xyz and nnn, then it can access all parts of the Internet, technically speaking.
Actually, it's nice for a government to use human common sense over a hypertechnical reading now and then.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
That's not honest. Don't know the truth in advertising laws in the UK but, there is a lot of the entire internet that you can't get on the iPhone. No Shockwave, WMV, Flash, etc, etc. It simply can not display all of what is on the internet, in fact, I doubt there is a computer that can.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
"This raises an interesting issue of where do you draw the line between essential and non-essential features of websites. What should the web look like? Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?"
How the fuck did you come up with that? what does that have anything do with the iPhone ad (either it's misleading or not)?
Let me know when the non-Flash version of Homestar Runner is up.
Think different
Personally, I think it should look like a bunch of HTML 1.0 pages with colorless background and a few heading styles used sparsely. A few images here and there and post tags for ordering stuff are okay, too. Anything above that is just needless crap.
Yes, it's a good idea to enforce this style. The NATO should have the power to do that.
Sometimes people get confused and think that Internet is the web and that the web is the Internet.
The web sits on top of the Internet and is a part of the Internet.
But the Internet is much bigger than just the web.
The web is just a part of the internet.
I haven't seen an iPhone with Gopher or WAIS yet. Until I can access these critical parts of the Internet, I cannot use the iPhone.
The iPhone can access flash and java content perfectly.
That it can't render it is a different argument entirely. It's particularly specious for proprietary shite like Flash which subverts the whole paradigm of the web being built around open protocols and formats.
Jeez, I suppose my Linux/PPC box can't access "all of the web" because fscking Adobe haven't been gracious enough to release Flash for it yet, and Gnash doesn't work perfectly on all flash "content".[0]
Utter bollocks.
[0] "content" in used here its loosest possible sense, which includes "effectively content-free content".
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
It's only misleading if you consider the world wide web to include sites that aren't available without third-party plugins. If so, then what about ActiveX plugins, and Silverlight, and Quicktime VRML, and Acrobat, and SafeTCL, and Processing, and Silverlight, and Firefox extensions, and Lively, and plugins that require SVGA or larger displays... what's "the whole internet" anyway?
'nuff said.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
From the summary: "What should the web look like? Should government authorities be the ones making that decision?"
Where the hell in the article does it even HINT at the possibility of government authorities making the decision of what constitutes what the web should look like? Oh, you're right, IT DOESN'T. This article is about a government agency, tasked with the job of policing advertising, doing its job. Nothing more, nothing less. Had timothy or Wills (story submitter) bothered to read the story, both would have seen that the second sentence perfectly sums up the entire issue.
"The Advertising Standards Authority said that a TV promotion had falsely suggested that iPhone users would have unfettered access to the entire internet over their mobile."
It's a feature!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
What confuses me is I know someone with an iTouch, who claims he could play Flash games on the web via WIFI...
You mean he hates the data plans and the roaming charges, and not the actual phone.
So you really need to say; Here is an iPhone user who hates the roaming charges. Not the design of the phone itself but of the service plan. It turns out that the roaming charges suck if you don't live in the US.
Anything else is dishonest.
GPL Deconstructed
If it doesn't work in lynx then it stinks.
I lack java and flash on my main browser yet I can still function just fine on the internet.
http://www.xpurple.com
It's the whole internet because Steve Jobs said so. Obviously flash and java aren't part of the internet.
These are all basic protocols that I use everyday with my desktop. I don't have an iPhone, but I'm under the impression that none of them work with the iPhone.
What do java and Flash have to do with the internet? Now individual programs are considered part of 'the internet'? What if my computer can't run Real Player? Am I no longer on 'the internet'? Sounds like more government bureaucrats that have no idea about the basics of modern technology.
Essential web services?
ftp?
gopher?
ssh?
IRC?
NNTP?
SMTP?
Here is a better idea, if only there was a law that required any company doing commerce to design their "store/web-site" so that entry, egress, navigation, and information were easy to access by EVERYBODY regardless of physical ability. Or wait there is. ADA (US-Centric I know, but I am making a point so bear with me) states that even web-sites should use correct tags so Blind people can still use them. Text-to-speech an brail readers only work when there isn't crap in the way.
Heaven forbid an option to view/use the WWW in plain-text would exist. The only purpose all this eye-candy serves is to advertise something.
Proposal: make every web-design student use a text-only browser (like lynx) for the first 2 years of school.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Whilst the summary's nothing more than a troll (as everyone else has said, the ASA isn't a government authority) there is at least one area where it mandates something in this area - website presentation. It's in the "Disability Discrimination Act 1995":
(1) It is unlawful for a provider of services to discriminate against a disabled personâ"
(a) in refusing to provide, or deliberately not providing, to the disabled person any service which he provides, or is prepared to provide, to members of the public;
The link to the text of the law is here:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1995/ukpga_19950050_en_4#pt3-pb1-l1g19
It's usually interpreted as forcing web sites to be compatible with screen readers (used by the blind) and high contrast / large character screen modes (used by the partially sighted).
It'd be interesting to see what would happen if someone who relied on a screen reader decided to take a service provider who didn't provide an accessible mode to court. If it meant that more sites had a more easily accessible "just the text, please" mode I'd welcome it.
It's worth mentioning that Adobe apparently do have a go at making Flash content potentially accessible:
http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/flashplayer/
The ASA aren't 'government bureaucrats.' TFA is as misleading as the Apple ad.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Surprised this hasn't been brought up yet...
Does anyone know if UK law has puffery defined in its trade laws, and if so, the extent (if any) allowed?
I presume that puffery protected Apple from similar problems here in the States.
Well, if it's "essential" then it's part of a w3c-like standards body and implementable anywhere, if it's extra stuff then it's some extension that can be only used on a certain platform. It would be pretty stupid to restrict something essential to just a handful of controlled implementations that aren't portable.
Not only that, but apple's claims for 'fast' speed are also false and debunked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaN1Nz1Dyls
iPhone problems are with advertising, not the web.
ASA is not government!
"...where to draw the line..." -- there's no place for line drawing here except in the mind of the poster.
I think that the problem here stems from what Apple thought people would interpret the phrase "whole internet" to mean. They probably thought it implied that you get the regular internet, not the red-headed step child of the internet that most web enabled phones get (Not talking about most smart phones here). That claim is fairly well founded. The group that made the ruling (not the government according to some here) had a different interpretation of that line. The question is which was is more acurate for the most people (us geeks not withstanding).
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
What if my computer can't run Real Player?
The you can't claim that it can access ALL the internet. There's probably no device that can claim to access all the internet (both it's protocols & content).
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
Apple should have learned from the best misleading advertisements, and restated the iPhone as having "virtually all the internet"
One essential role the government has in protecting a free market is enforcing truth in advertising. Left to just the buyers and sellers, the market fills with fly-by-night liars who sell a boatload of lies before they can be caught, then reappear under another name later to sell some more lies.
Instead, civilized societies of people band together to protect ourselves by making a government that enforces laws requiring substantial public statements to be true.
--
make install -not war
I'm as quick to slam the government as anyone, but I did not get the impression that big brother is specifying what parts of the internet are essential. Rather, they're saying that a reasonable person would consider these features essential, a measuring stick used by governments for everything from boundry disputes to self defense.
In this particular case, I happen to agree. Without flash and java, a lot of sites will not work. A reasonable person would not consider that "all parts of the internet". Apple's marketing got carried away, and they deserved to be spanked.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
131 000 hits
Microsoft ? 72 400
>Presenting content in a way that requires Flash or Java is a choice, not a requirement.
Well, that is only true for certain types of data. Say, for example, I want to display 3d models of protein crystal structures along with other data relating to the chemical.
I can do it using the JMol applet assuming my browser supports Java.
You think that could be done with Ajax?
Just because a few retarded people have misused the technology doesn't mean it can't be used in a worthwhile way by other people.
So, in my example website, iPhone users get to see the data but not the 3d molecules. ie, they don't get "the full internet".
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
"fiannaFail" - Is that like a badge of honor? Everyone knows "Fianna Fail" is the gaelic for corruption: Charles Haughey and Bertie Ahern
automatically makes it 'non-essential'. No one in their right mind makes a flash-only website. *Adding* some flash content, where flash is appropriate (video, animations), is fine. But using flash for the basic navigation of your site is just INSANE. Anyone that would argue otherwise is either INSANE or an UTTER MORON.
I'm *glad* my iphone doesnt have flash, and if Apple ever does decide to add support for it, I will find a way to disable it. I like that Youtube had to let their videos *out* of flash format. I'm glad that people wanting to develop for the iphone are *forced* to not use flash.
what a waste of space including rs-232...?? we can afford to go to space,
but we need an rs-232 port just in case we can't afford the newer USB peripherals!?!?
maybe we should include PS/2 ports in case they cant afford a USB keyboard & mouse??
imho, the ports should be:
- DVI video
- USB 2.0
- Ethernet
- Compact Flash
- Audio In/Out
- fit more RAM where you wasted space for RS-232
that's it.
Flash has become the 4-cyl Hummer of the information superhighway. I don't want to sit behind a lumbering behemoth. I want info. I want it at a reasonable speed. I don't want to head over to some site and find out that it takes several minutes to get through what they want you to see and are patting themselves on the back for creating. speedtest.net is a great example of this. And very ironical. A minute of gratuitous painfully slow flash animation to get to run a 10 sec test of my connection speed. Just give me a list and let me click it.
If Flash went away tomorrow it would be no great loss and speed up the web user experience significantly.
Java however is a puzzlement for iPhone. My low-end Motorola L2 can run it - Apple should have had this done eons ago.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Turns out it doesn't have enough tubes.
"All parts of the Internet" includes a huge array of technologies, some of which a phone can't handle, or Apple probably wouldn't put on their platform (Silverlight?). Governments should be in the business of making sure that businesses are not allowed to mislead the public. Businesses certainly aren't going to police their own advertising for truth.
Who cares if it's "essential" content? That word is completely subjective. Apple said someone could access any kind of media put on the Internet via iPhone - all parts of the Internet. If that iPhone user can't access it, or obtain a player/runtime to access it by legal means, then the statement is not true.
I was always bothered by the Iphone commercial in the states that said something along the lines of "This is not a watered down internet, no, this is the real full internet" for this same reason.
Thanks, Apple. I was not under the impression that internet = WWW, but now I know I was wrong. Apple would never mislead me with their marketing claims, would they?
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
speedtest.net is a great example of these. A very ironical. A minute of gratuitous painfully slow flash animation to get to run a 10 sec test of my connection speed.
Holy fuck, how slow is your computer that speedtest.net takes a minute to load? I'm on a 1 GHz Pentium M, and from the moment the site begins loading to the point that I can start a test is about 10 seconds. And most of that is simply due to the animations they feel like running; without any transitions, I'd guess that the Flash app might take two or three seconds to get to a usable state. Are you sure that you're not the person with a "4-cyl Hummer" here?
What's actually ironic here is that you berate Flash but apparently don't have a problem with Java. Well, maybe that's more hyprocritic than ironic.
I know this will burn my karma into the ground, but what the hell:
The troll comment by the OP regarding the government regulation is typical Apple fanboy crap. The reality distortion field is fading here, so rather than face the (obvious) flaws of the iphone -- this time highlighted by Apple's very own ad -- he attempts to shift the story over to an anti-government wah wah story. It's really kind of sad how desperate he is to point blame away from the perfect little iProduct and its organization.
...what the web should be, we'd be back in web 0.25 days in about five year. If you let private industry decide, the entire web will be one big bill board (which it very nearly is). Find the middle ground folks...
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
It's enforcing fair trade descriptions laws. The web includes a LOT of flash etc. The iPhone claims all the web can be on there, it cannot. Apple knows it. It's a false claim. Now if it was some piddling little thing that wasn't supported it'd be no big deal, but this is a major de facto standard so you you cannot legally make an advertising claim like that in the UK. Consumers are protected from false claims there without having to resort to a court. I wish it were so in the USA.
Either you are joking, or you've never actually used the site. It is not the non-flash version of Homestar Runner. It is a podcast of the most recent strongbad email, starting in 2007. You can't get to any of the shorts, full cartoons, games or the other rest of the Homestar Runner website. And it was done by converting the flash files movies, which took away all the interactivity that is a big part of the emails.
Plus it was discontinued in January.
This is starting to remind me of the logic of Apple claiming the iPhone can access the whole internet...
iPhone -> VNC Client -> Flash!
or even
iPhone -> ssh Client -> Gopher!
Come on guys you just need to Think Different (tm)
Britain's Advertising Standards Authority also forbids advertising related to the occult. Coincidence? I think not.
From the code:
(2) For these purposes, 'the occult' includes, for example, invocation of spirits, tarot and attempts to contact the dead or demons. (No, I'm not making that up; see the pdf, section 10.3.)
That's all the proof I need.
It's all well and good to say they shouldn't have to include telnet, irc and some weird unknown plugins that are probably just spyware but Flash is a very big part of the web and to a lesser extend so is Java. So I would the ruling is spot on. Someone needs to let Apple know that if they want to be software Nazis then they lose the freedom to make such claims.
mac, current leopard. 30 sec gratuituous animation on a g4 1.33, 16 sec on a g5. just to draw a map. with worthless animations.
why use flash at all just to let me choose a test server from a 90% static list off a database?
when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
my problem with java is much less, as it scales down to something like my simple L2 and scales up to run its parts of neooffice quite well.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Seems like Apple's iPhone latest speed claims might be rather off as well.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Not out of the box, but the iPhone has the hardware and software capability to access all of the web. Whether it does with the default software is irrelevant. Anyone with a jailbroken phone probably knows that typing 'ifconfig' on it will give you a internet-routable IP address on the cell interface.
So it's as real of a internet connection as your computer at home, just not with all the proper software.
As much as I hate crap advertising, they never claimed that it could render Flash or Java, and the capabilities of the hardware and underlying OS allow the possibility.
Methinks there are more important and misleading ads to fry.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Let them claim whatever they want to.
By extension, are you saying that any browser which is unable to render ActiveX content is unable to "access the web" and should be prohibited from making such claims?
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
If you include third-party applications, the phone really can access the entire internet.
Please show me a SIP videophone that works while not near WiFi.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Actually, the ASA are there to protect the general populace from misleading advertising.
If anything, I wish they would censor more advertising than they currently do - far too many corporate lies make it onto TV and cinema screens, and into colour spreads in magazines.
Sorry, but if Apple is selling the concept that the iPhone can give users a similar but portable experience of the web like they get on their PCs, then the ASA is perfectly correct pulling Apple up over those claims.
Just because Apple does it does not make in excusable.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The ASA is not a governmental body. It is independent.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
I would, if I were a lawyer, suggest that since the iPhone has access to IP space, that indeed they do have access to the "whole" internet.
TCP or UDP are connection protocols, which I also suspect also are complete.
This means, that if you want gopher, write your own client.
This is reason why Governments shouldn't get involved in such things. Too ambiguous.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Yes, Flash and Java have become popular but they are still plugins. By the UK's logic, iPhones need to support all plugins as well? What about SilverLight or ? Apple provides access to entire internet just some doesn't render. :-)
First post! (just in case I am...)
This comment was tagged "overrated". Yesterday a comment I made was tagged "flamebait". And not long prior another of mine was tagged "overrated" as well (without having been moderated up at all).
Or perhaps someone with something against me has pulled moderator points once or twice in the past two weeks?
And yes, I acknowledge this comment deserves to be tagged "offtopic". But it had to be said.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
With all the messages here so far, I'm surprised that nobody has posted the obvious auto analogy:
It's like an auto ad that says the car can drive anywhere on the public street system. So you buy it, and discover that it has a sensor that determines the road-surface type, and the engine turns off if you try to drive on any surface except asphalt. The car company excuses their misleading ad by saying that nobody needs to drive on concrete or (God forbid) gravel. You should be able to get anywhere you need to go on asphalt.
Now aren't you ashamed of not posting this analogy first?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Until the recent 3G launch and the 2.0 firmware upgrade you could not even save files to the device without installing a 3rd party 'hack'.
This is something that has been possible for a long time on wireless devices but was crippled by Apple. During this time they were claiming the same things regarding its capabilities ala the Internet. "We do it all"
And now, how about downloading and installing an application outside of the App Store? oh right not possible without another 'hack'.
Therefore, who cares about flash etc, you can't even perform simple protocols on the device.
This case has nothing to do with government deciding what should and shouldn't be considered essential elements of a website or not. Rather, they are simply making a "truth in advertising" judgment, which is rather easy against Apple's claim that begins with "all parts...". It only takes a single excluded element to make that claim false, so Apple's just silly for wording their ad that way. They should have seen this suit coming with such a bogus claim in their ad.
-=[You cannot consistently judge this statement to be true.]=-
I think its rather funny that the first line in the linked ad is "There has never been an iPod that can do this...". But wait, there has been many many many PDAs and smartphones that can.... oh and better! Plus besides the whole internet statement, it runs safari! Is it my imagination or does safari no support the full HTML/DHTML/JavaScript specification in the first place. about the only browser i know of that supports the specs properly is Firefox isn't it?? I have not had alot to do with safari, but I have had to alter a few websites to display on it properly!
The Internet is a packet-switching network. As far as I can tell the iPhone has just as much connectivity as any home computer, it's not sandboxed into some crappy WAP corner nobody cares about.
No there are serious restrictions on how you can use your iPhone. No P2P is one such restriction. The other is you cannot use your iPhone as a modem to link to your computer. That is what decided me against it.
Think Different. Lie