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writes "Apple has been running an iPhone ad saying 'all parts of the internet are on the iPhone', but it had to be withdrawn after Britain's Advertising Standards Authority ruled that it gave 'a misleading impression of the internet capabilities of the iPhone' because the iPhone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?"
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?
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.
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?
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.
Source:http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/about/
The iPhone App store better get cracking on those Archie, Gopher and WAIS clients.
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'.
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.
It's right there in the summary. We have the Advertising Standards Authority.
"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".
> "I have here a coffee mug. It gets all of the internet [for my particular definition of all of the internet]".
I'll bet your coffee mug runs Java, though, something the iPhone can't do.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
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
"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.
the web != the Internet
Remind me again which one was for porn?
Has Ubuntu created an advertising campaign where it implies that it's the only operating system that works properly on the internet, despite the fact that many others have more solid support apart from the user interface?
My Sig: SEGV
It turns out that it's not much different from the iPhone in the US, then.
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.
OK, it's up.
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?
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."
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.
The Internet is a communications medium and content delivery system. Flash and Java are content. The iPhone doesn't restrict people to WAP proxies and a limited number of preselected sites like some cell phones. What you can do with the content once you get it has no bearing on whether or not you have access to the site it's on.
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/
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.
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
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."
The better concern should be why pick on Apple when some much other false advertising get through the system...
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
As somebody that doesn't have a working flash player on his computer, not having flash significantly limits access to the web. Java not so much, but it does limit things.
If they're not going to provide a flash or java plug in they have absolutely no right to say that all parts of the internet are accessible. Those two plug ins are sufficiently widespread that you're not getting access to a fairly significant portion of the web.
Some of the sites that one would want to go to like take out restaurants don't have a non-flash part of the site. Sure they really should, but realistically if random sites aren't going to work because a mainstream plug in isn't available, that's hardly access to the whole web.
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.
I am pretty sure the UK government has no such right. As others have pointed out, the Advertising Standards Authority is an independent industry body, not part of the government.
Opera on my N95.
why do supposedly intelligent fellow overhype a clumsy device?
Probably because, unlike you, they've used it.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
This is really non-news. Consumer watchdogs are doing their job to stop ads that two users (perhaps Nokia and Microsoft? : P ) complained about. So Apple will run its shit-ton of iPhone ads without that one in the UK. No lawsuits involved, absolutely no impact on anything.
What will happen however, and is already underway, is that the iPhone is cracking open the prospect for real mobile websites that don't require Flash or Java. Previously, everything on the web was moving toward WAP-type mobile junksites, where you could barely do anything on the site, or alternatively Flash-heavy rubbish sites designed for users on a 10-megabit cable Internet feed.
Apple has upgraded "mobile web" to mean modern web standards-compliant sites that load fast. It has shared its own advances with Nokia (in both directions, as Nokia contributed to WebKit before the iPhone was even released), and has pushed hardware that is having a real effect on the market. That in turn will help FOSS devices, including Google's WebKit-using Android platform. It has also allowed Firefox to get a foot in the door with a mobile version based on the same standards but a unique implementation.
Apple redefined mobile web and the consumer web itself. It has already forced Adobe to support H.264 rather than its proprietary Flash video codec, opening the market for, among others, Linux users who can write their own H.264 based on the standards but can't as easily implement the undocumented, moving target of the Flash specification. Of course, Apple is doing it for the Mac; Linux just benefits from it.
Mobile web now means "fast loading pages," and that fact that Apple has absorbed nearly instant dominance over the mobile web means Apple is choosing to lead in an open market where competition and interoperability work to create better products. Apple could have developed a proprietary "Cocoa Web" that forced all of the iPhone's market power into a monopolized model that only benefitted Apple (in the model of IE), but did not.
Incidentally, Engadget recently reported that 95% of its mobile traffic was from the iPhone. Engadget is frequently critical of the iPhone and its readers and comments are not predominantly Apple-lovers by any means. That's market power, and Apple is using it "righteously."
This also benefits desktop users, particularly those with less than a fat pipes. It also puts a bullet phone in the forehead of Flash, Silverlight and other attempts to convert the web from open HTML to some closed, proprietary binary that requires a license from Adobe/Microsoft to use. Apple is using its market power with the iPod/iPhone to open standards; Microsoft used its PC market power to shut down competition and take over markets that it then either threw away as not profitable enough or sat on without adding any further innovation (such as the web browser, which flatlined for years from IE 5 to IE 7 because there was no competition).
That's why I laugh in the face of morons who try to say Apple = Microsoft.
Incidentally, I can watch the flash version on my Nokia N82 with the latest firmware.
Is arguing more important than understanding?
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
Nah, cause Apple isn't actively blocking content, they're simply not supporting it which in turn makes it unavailable.
A more suitable analogy would be an all-weather car that doesn't start in temperatures below -30C (-22F) or above 30C (86F). Sure you can argue about how one can get along fine with that limitation. You can even argue that the car company is doing you a favour by preventing you from driving in such ridiculous (I'm Canadian, I've seen worse) temperatures. But, for many people it's an unquestioned expectation, since it's a part of their regular driving experience.
The point is. The everyday plain vanilla web surfer doesn't differentiate between a WC3 compliant and Flash enabled pages. They're simply web pages they have access to and expect to have access to. I think this is a reasonable belief. When you tell the plain vanilla web surfer that he's going to have access to the whole Internet on an iPhone. He'll probably expect to have access to both the WC3 compliant page, and the flash enabled page. I think this is also reasonable.
New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
The whole thing is stupid. Does "full web functionality" mean having every single piece of crapware required to make every single web site function? I doubt there are many computers that have "full web functionality" in that sense. As for asking the British authorities to decide on what counts, give me a break.
And if we were to pay attention to the actual meaning of the words, then a reasonable argument could be made that including flash decreases the functionality of the web in many ways. I personally hate it, not because the technology itself is rubbish, but because site designers cover their sites with useless flash shit.
If flash is so functional, why is flashblock so popular?
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
I'll translate that from Fanboy to English.
because they are trying to justify spending A$700 on a crippled device
That's not Fanboy to English. It's Fanboy-A to Fanboy-B. You're behaving the same way you're complaining about other people behaving.
This level of over-zealous silliness amazes me. "The iPhone doesn't support Flash just like every other cell phone on the planet. That means it's crippled!" It's sad to see people waiting in line for hours to get an iPhone. It isn't much less sad to see people devoting energy to a propaganda'esque movement to convince people that have never used one that an iPhone is simply a $200 lump of plastic with a 2 year committment.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)