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Aug 27, 08 - 08:12 am Comment from: Crabapple

Oh! we like sheep

Aug 27, 08 - 08:13 am Comment from: elgruga

Its England - a nasty little overcrowded place where the residents get drunk and fight each other over a half-eaten bag of french fries, while being filmed by one or more of the 4 million surveillance cameras they have there.

MDN take is perfect.

Aug 27, 08 - 08:19 am Comment from: Wandering joe

England's a great place! Most Englishmen are great people! Laws are laws and made to be obeyed. No problem there, move on.

I'm for making a new internet free of java and flash!

MW: less-less is more!

"a nasty little overcrowded place where the residents get drunk and fight each other over a half-eaten bag of french fries, while being filmed by one or more of the 4 million surveillance cameras they have there"

In the U.S., we call that the Super Bowl.
In Canada, it's the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Aug 27, 08 - 08:29 am Comment from: JAYGEE

@ elgruga

Get it right. It's chips, not french fries!

Well done ASA

UK and all parts of it great.

They don't need asshats at the ASA changing the Brits diapers over nonsense.

'Laws are laws' eh. You sound like an off-the-shelf sheep.

Aug 27, 08 - 08:34 am Comment from: HMCIV

@MDN Take

See wikipedia for causes and the ending of the war of 1812. Communication between US & Britain sometimes is a wee bit slow laddie.

After the fat nano, now the fat iPhone?

Aug 27, 08 - 08:42 am Comment from: Sixvodkas

I like England, just can't reckon how they call what they speak "English".

Aug 27, 08 - 08:43 am Comment from: Jamie

I must admit this is very anal of the ASA.

After buying my first Mac, I've always expected a gorgeous, sledgehammer-hurling woman dressed in red track shorts and a white tank-top to storm my house and smash my TV screen.
I'm still waiting Anya.

England is not a democracy. It is not free. No wonder the sheep need to have their hand held by the ASA. No wonder Britons go on holiday and are the worst drunks in the room. Good luck with 2012.

Aug 27, 08 - 08:53 am Comment from: JoeMac

"all the parts of the internet are on the iPhone" --- it's either a factual statement or it's not.

It's not.

Just tell the truth, people.

wow are they lame. If your PC doesn't have Flash or Java enabled out of the box, then why would users expect any different for a phone?

I am English, and do not say "all American are fat and eat burgers", because it would not be true. I have an iphone and have/had Apple products for over 20 years. The ASA ruling is bureaucratic rot, but don't take it out on my Country.

Colonial Scum, you screw up the world with your cowardly shock and awe munitions, pollute the atmosphere for everybody and get grotesquely obese driving everywhere, then get your knickers in a twist over a ruling designed to keep advertising 'Legal, Decent, True and Honest'. Not that Apple's American ad agency would have a clue what any of those words meant.

Aug 27, 08 - 09:27 am Comment from: ABQ Peter

no one else can get to my frequent flier account without my password; i am glad not all parts of the internet are accessible to everyone. being literal too easily leads to silliness.

I only read MDC periodically -- when I need a little laugh at the expense of whoever at Apple runs this site.

This site is so funny! It's pure propaganda.

I hate Microsoft. I have no taste for their products or culture, but at least they're not masquerading as something they're not.

so the guy who designed

the imac

the ibook

the iphone etc

is erm english.

sometimes MDN really does get up its own backside. to paraphrase john stewart of the daily show in his assassination of crossfire at the last election.

just stop. you're not helping.

really.

Americans slagging off other nationalities, which is greater I wonder the ignorance, the hypocrisy or simply the arrogance. That said this is a stupid decision which flies in the face of Government sponsored rules on open standards and accessibility for websites. It is java and flash that should be confronted for their oppressive exclusivity not those who refuse to accept their restrictive structures that prevent people accessing the web especially on mobile devices.

Aug 27, 08 - 09:42 am Comment from: TheConfuzed1

@The Truth--

Paranoid much?

Ya know MDN, I usually support the views here on Apple on their often superior products and its very rare when Apple is in the wrong. But when Apple is wrong about something......their wrong about something.
When you guys react like the way you did above it really is disturbing. The ASA have the ABSOLUTE right to have those ads pulled. Who the hell cares if they were old ads or not?! Yes, there is usually some codec you have to download to install in order to view something on the internet. But the average user takes it for granted that you can usually download something to your browser so you can go ahead and view stuff without a problem. Can you easily do that with the iphone?
No.

Gawd MDN. When you write stuff like that you give fuel to guys like Rob Enderle. And when it comes time to debate something that Enderle (an Apple hater) writes not everyone will listen to you guys because you make yourselves out to be nothing but irrational Apple fanboys!

Aug 27, 08 - 09:49 am Comment from: DLMeyer

I wonder what they do with Safari! I mean the version on my desktop. Every now and then it gets told "you need an advanced browser for this site" - meaning IE. I don't get upset with Safari for not being "advanced" enough, I just write a brief e-mail to the web master, the CTO, the CIO, the CEO, and maybe one or two others, explaining that the problem is not with Safari but with their non-compliant coding practices. Everyone but the web master is Bcc'd, so that cat is blindsided by The Boss after deleting my message. "No, no, no, just an angry Mac user ... only about 1% of them out there - honest!" CTOs and CIOs hate to have to explain these things to confused CEOs and take it out on web masters. <ha>, <ha, ha>, <BWA-ha-ha!>

I know that it's splitting hairs, but it is true that Flash or Java web sites won't be seen on the iPhone, so I'm glad that Apple jerked the ad. You've still got it on YouTube. Personally, I'm glad that the ASA did this, so maybe Apple might seriously consider adding support for Flash and Java.

Do other smart phones offer Java or Flash with their browsers? I don't know; I'm just asking. Do they even make a mobile version of Java and Flash? One thing that I've noticed is that the iPhone has brought in a lot more interested developers to OS X that we normally never had.

I say get rid of Flash on the internet. However, since that isn't going to happen, at least not anytime soon, the iPhone should be enabled to see flash content. Period.

Aug 27, 08 - 10:08 am Comment from: StarkReality

Good for the ASA. The reality distortion machine is seriously over cranked when it comes to the iPhone. While the iPhone does provide a better experience than most smart phones, it does so only ok the most rudimentary of websites. The consequence is that you wind up using the dumbed down WAP or RSS versions of most major sites anyway. A very significant portion of the Imternet uses FLASH and Java. Let's not forget that 99.9% of video codecs are not supported either. Ironically, other handsets have mo problem with FLASH and JAVA and multiple video codecs.

They’re such wimps here in the UK. Over in the States you did a whole commercial saying PCs can’t talk to Japanese cameras. Brilliant. And Vista has more upgrade problems than Leopard – how do you get away with it?

Never mind Flash and Java - there are parts of Apple's own website that I can't access on my iPhone (I'm talking about certain videos embedded in some of their pages).

Aug 27, 08 - 10:33 am Comment from: Mo

Let Flash fade away.

ASA doesn't understand. People only need what is available. Silly Windows users have to think. Us Mac users (and espeically all of us here at MDN) understand that we are to only believe and do whatever Steve says. If Steve wanted us to view the "unofficial" it, it would be available on the iPhone....

iPhone has almost .2% share of people surfing the net. WE will decide the new standard and make the other 99.8% of the world fall in line....

If Steve says FLASH and JAVA sucks, then it sucks and we don't need it...

Aug 27, 08 - 10:50 am Comment from: Fanboy

I agree with everyone here! Flash is the problem, not the iPhone. The ASA should mind their own stupid business, or contact websites that use Flash and Java and tell theme they are screwing up iPhone ads! Unfreaking believable!

First off, if an ad is to be investigated, it goes in the queue to be investigated - doesn't matter if it's off-air or not when the investigation is complete. Unless you think a system of snap judgements made with no research would be better? No? Ok, we'll move on.

Second, Apple's mistake was not to make assumptions, but to state something that could be easily interpreted as claiming something that wasn't true. Are the people who complained pedants? Are they likely MS-loving pedants out to stick one to Apple? Yes to both - but they're also unfortunately correct.

Third, the point about out of the box stuff and plug-ins and downloads is irrelevant, because the claim is not about what you can or can't do on other stuff but what Apple claim you can do on an iPhone. Can anyone use flash in Safari on their iPhone? No. Could the ad wording be taken as implying you can see the whole internet on the iPhone version of Safari when you actually can't? Yes. Therefore the ruling is absolutely, 100% correct.

MDN - get your collective rage and direct it at something worthwhile, and not the UK in general (because - guess what - we don't all work for the ASA!) or the ASA just because they enforced the rules and caught Apple being inadvertently disingenuous. For one thing, those exact same ad rules stop us having adverts that slag off other products and stop us having programs swamped with product placement, and you'd be hard pushed to argue that the US system is better. Besides, we all know if this had been the exact same scenario but about e.g. Windows Mobile you'd be applauding the ASA until your arms fall off, whereas ranting against anything you perceive as even slightly anti-Apple even when they ARE in the wrong just makes you look preposterous and ruins your credibility.

But hey, have some points for at least spelling "arse" right

Aug 27, 08 - 11:11 am Comment from: bobchr

Sun and Adobe are presumably working on their products to make them more compliant and able to operate on the Iphone. This has been argued incessantly in previous post. The issue here is you have a bureaucratic agency trying to protect a public from an ad that really does no financial damage to anyone and no longer airs people. If I were British I would think to demand more value from my public servants for my tax dollars than validating their silliness and have them have them posturing in what seems to be a clear case of feather bedding. Thought you Brits were more intelligent than that.

Non web standard web sites should not count in any reckoning of visitable web sites. IE only web sites should be banned.

Flash and java based web sites should be deemed Windows only and banned as well.

Aug 27, 08 - 11:36 am Comment from: theloniousMac

@bobchr

The ASA is not the problem. The ASA simply tries to insure truth in advertising. Apple clearly implies that "all of the internet" is accessible on their mobile device, and that's a lie.

All Apple had to do was slap a disclaimer on the site indicating that FLASH and Java are not supported by the iPhone. They still can and I'm sure the ASA would permit the commercial to play again.

This is Apple's problem both from a truth in advertising perspective, and from a 'just why the hell doesn't FLASH" run on the iPhone when it runs so easily and effectively on so many other mobile devices?

I believe it's more Microsoft like behavior on the part of Apple. Apple has a closed, proprietary, Apple-controlled ecosystem with the iPhone SDK. FLASH would break that wide open, and FLASH applications run not just on the iPhone, but on a ton of other mobile devices.

Software developed using the iPhone SDK only runs on the iPhone. So if you want any of the nifty programs written for the iPhone, you're going to have to get an iPhone.

If all those nifty programs were written using FLASH, or JAVA you have a choice.

This is EXACTLY why Microsoft kept trying to kill JAVA and prevent JAVA from running under Windows. A program written in JAVA can run on any platform, you don't need Windows. When pressured, Microsoft tried to "embrace and extend" JAVA by creating extension that made JAVA programs Windows exclusive.

Apple is fighting FLASH and JAVA in exactly the same way, for exactly the same reason.

Aug 27, 08 - 11:37 am Comment from: Me on this iSland

MDN...spot on. I was thinking the words "stick" and "arse" as I read the article with disbelief.

@ elgruga and rubbish 2...
harsh, but funny because it's all true...
Come to Britain, where minority rules !
Oh, and on buying alcohol, I choose to spend some money there occasionally because if I save it all the Govt will take it from my family when I die and so at least I get to p*ss it up the wall before they do !

Aug 27, 08 - 12:14 pm Comment from: ibookboyuk

ASA hats.

Seems they do a good job though.

Once again, MDN goes off half-cocked in its overzealous defense of Apple.
It strikes me as a relevant to say that what I "normally" access on my Mac or desktop PC is implied to be accessible by the iPhone when they say "all parts". 3rd party or not, whether I like them or not, Flash and Java are major parts of the web landscape and when I sit down at a computer I expect to be able to access their content.
I'm perfectly happy that Apple has chosen to exclude Java and Flash in favor of open-standard alternatives, and I hope it has a ripple effect on the web as a whole, but it can still reasonably be called a misrepresentation to claim access to "all parts" (whatever a part of the web is) of the web when you don't support that content.

Then what the hell is taking Apple so long to debut a flash replacement then? They are not writing it from scratch now are they? No.
Its already done I'm sure. So the question again is if they don't want adobe flash on the iphone then what the hell is taking them so long to debut a flash replacement on the iphone???

Why couldn't the ASA make it clear that it's a one year old ad? Now everyone is running wild as if they just forcefully yanked a new iPhone 3G ad off the air.

Some idiot writer at Engadget for example claims it's "one of Apple's latest ads."

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/27/uks-advertising-standards-authority-yanks-iphone-ad-for-being-m/

At least it's only the English that are stupid enough to get into such a tizzy over misleading advertising claims.

Oh, wait.

Apple sued over iPhone 3G reception issues

Java and flash are no more "parts of the internet," than jpg, gif, mov, mp3, and pdf are.

To claim so is absurd.

They may be parts of websites, but not the internet because the internet (and even websites) can exist without them (and java & flash).

flash and java are not part of the internet.

Aug 27, 08 - 05:10 pm Comment from: British Mac Head

@elgruga
"Its England - a nasty little overcrowded place where the residents get drunk and fight each other over a half-eaten bag of french fries, while being filmed by one or more of the 4 million surveillance cameras they have there."

French fries. That's the worst export your coutrymen have sold us. They are just a disgusting, soggy, nasty, awful, flavourless, reconstituted, ultra-fatty, preservative riddled, cornstarch coated pointless, inedible, unfit for human consumption poor excuse for chips. When I say chips I mean proper chips you get from a fish and chip shop, not crisps! Chips are made from 100% potato, thick, tasty top quality potatoes, King Edwards or Maris Piper. And to go with that you get a beautiful thickly sliced piece of haddock or cod coated with a batter made from natural ingredients and it's made fresh. Not pre-made, preservative riddled "fillet of fish" like you get at Mucky D's.

So elgruga my burger munching friend. You may not like our country, but suggesting we would fight over your disgusting french fries. Forget it pal...

I suggest you come over here and experience England for yourself. You might realise that your stereotypes are completely wrong.

Oh. And I love Apple, have an iPhone and 11 Macs (including 6 old ones up in my loft) but I agree whole heartedly with the ASA. it was wrong of Apple to suggest you get the whole web experience on the iPhone. Whether we like Java or Flash or not they are still used on a ton of web sites and therefore those sites cannot be used. It's as simple as that.

MDN, Apple are the best tech company on the planet but they do occasionally make mistakes and you need to remember that when you do your takes.

@Sixvodkas
I like England, just can't reckon how they call what they speak "English".

Well last I knew we invented the language.
<sarcasm>But I may be wrong. I'd better go and double check it on wikipedia.</sarcasm>

More vapid hot air from the site BS generator.

Aug 27, 08 - 05:57 pm Comment from: bobchr

@ theloniousMac
Seems there is some confusing rational in your post. If you are going to develop software for a target piece of equipment would it not be nice to actually have that equipment to test your software? Also earlier post on this site have already documented why Apple has not allowed Flash on the Iphone and that has to it's memory hogging burdensome features. With people already complaining in gen 1 about how slow AT&T;'s 2.5G was why would you allow something that would make the web browsing experience of the IPhone worse. Technically you can put any IP address into your browser of the IPhone. If you run into a Flash site it just ask you to download a new version of Flash. The Apple OSX system and web browsers are based on open standards. I don't think you can say the say for Adobe 's Flash and SUNs Java. As I alluded to earlier they are trying to make their systems more compliant with the Iphone. I would not hold my breath though as Adobe has dragged it's feet on it's last update of software for Macs.

United Kingdom only has some stupid people, most of them left when they immigrated to other countries

Aug 27, 08 - 06:22 pm Comment from: scut

Um...where's the news here? Just a ploy to goat people into bashing/defending England.

This is supposed to be a Mac Forum, not for us all to get Nationalistic as you Americans have many good things one being Apple and the other being Jonathan Ive, British and head designer at Apple!

The Brits never miss an opportunity to stick it up "the Yanks", and this is a perfect example... pulling a long-disappeared ad for an old model. Don't take it personally, Apple - they also hate the French, Germans, Japanese, Aussies, Italians...(and the list is endless).