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"really fast" is so subjective. Yeah, that ad wasn't showing the typical loading speed, but McDonalds doesn't show the typical Big Mac on their ads either.

Nov 26, 08 - 09:35 am Comment from: ron

The Beeb are boobs.

So then, no microsoft Ad can be aired in UK?or CrapBerry ads?
Looks like England belong to microsoft, remember the BBC "Windows Only" players?

Nov 26, 08 - 09:37 am Comment from: Connor MacBook

Another ad ban! The Brits seem to have a worse case of Apple tall poppy syndrome than anyone.

Yet another example of Apple failing to deliver as promised with the iPhone....

MDN are fools

Nov 26, 08 - 09:48 am Comment from: HMCIV

"Relatives who drink Absolute"?

FREAKING Brilliant! God I can't wait for Thanksgiving.

Nov 26, 08 - 09:57 am Comment from: Mike Caine

@ Ron

>The Beeb are boobs.

The Beeb don't show adverts, they're just reporting the story, same as MDN are

Nov 26, 08 - 09:59 am Comment from: Mike Caine

PS - I'm sure they're re done the adverts with a disclaimer that the time taken in the ad had been shortened compare to what it would actually take.

Nov 26, 08 - 10:08 am Comment from: ron

Maurice Micklewhite, "PS - I'm sure they're re done the adverts."

I just love English grammar.

No I think this is a good thing. Don't put Apple on a pedestal for worship. They got to where they are because of hard work and real innovation. They earned it.
They need to keep earning it to stay there.

My iPhone has on occasion performed at speeds comparable to those shown in the ad, so Apple's claims are not untrue. What's disturbing is that in a country with over 60 million people, just 17 of them can, for whatever reason, determine what they all can and cannot be shown.

Wow, so offensive MDN.

Take a perfectly good article and use it for an opportunity to make fun of the Brits? What's the point here?

Everyone knows the ad is actually misleading and that the pages don't load that fast. Everyone over 40 or so knows that these kinds of ads used to be illegal even in North America.

The whole upshot of this story is just that in the UK, they still have laws to protect the consumer from misleading ads. So for that you take the time to humiliate and make fun of Brits in general?

I am seriously disappointed in this bigoted mess MDN presents here. And people wonder why they hate Americans in England.

Nov 26, 08 - 11:22 am Comment from: Predrag

Advertising Standards Authority seems to be on a very high horse. If you look at their list of 'adjudications' for the past week, there are over 20, and as many for previous weeks, each. Even BBC themselves are the the target of one of those (where the complaint was 'upheld').

Advertising standards in the UK are extremely complex and strict. It is of no surprise when foreigners are shocked when they watch American commercials with obvious distortions, embellishments and outright fantasy, all done in order to sell the product. The problem isn't that the American audiences are smarter and could tell when the truth is stretched (apparently, they can't any better than non-Americans, as many end up believing the ad statements literally); it is just that no mechanism exists to protect these consumers from making stupid mistakes. The only time an advertiser will put a disclaimer ("Professional driver on a closed road", or "do not attempt at home") is when the ad represents something that can clearly be dangerous (and/or lethal) for consumer to do. If the product's performance is greatly exaggerated, no harm, no foul -- consumer's a fool there.

I'm sure Advertising Standards Authority of UK often goes a bit too far with their crusades, but it is probably better to have one than not to have it. In the end, it forces advertisers to be more creative and to present their product and message without outright lying.

... and yet Microsoft were able to claim without irony how wonderful their security was on XP and how seriously they took such matters without any trouble at all with the same authority. Seems honesty is in the eye of the beholder and the ASA are about as objective as Steve Balmer when spouting forth on the merits of Windows. It really is time that these nameless characters had their bank accounts investigated.

Come on! no way the iphone is that fast!! I have one here its on my wifi network and in the time it took the ad to play a normal page had not even loaded completely in Safari. So damn right ASA.

Other points already made re: BBC is that THEY DON"T SHOW ADS!!!! this is a news story so before you, who are ignorant of such facts, please learn something before you mouth off. Thank god that ads are watched in the UK in the states any quack can sell snake oil and get away with it, And you think that is what? Freedom of speech?

Nov 26, 08 - 12:45 pm Comment from: Cubert

spyinthesky,

I agree. I've always wondered if it is illegal for the CEO of a corporation to make knowingly false statements in interviews. If so, Ballmer is going up the river for a long, long time.

Nov 26, 08 - 01:00 pm Comment from: MacFhearghaile

And for all of these years I've thought that download speed was more of an ISP issue and not so much the hardware, of course the English are always right and they will all ways bitch when hung, even if you use a new rope. Looking down their noses at the rest of the world seems to be a national past time. Call some one a liar, as several obviously English posters have done, will get you shot in many parts of the world. There is no problem with the English ego they have enough for everyone.

@MacFhearghaile

English? British, you dipstick

Moron's

I live in England, i'm ashamed to say i'm ashamed of the BBC. The most miniscule piece of bad news for Apple gets a full page and sits there for weeks, then when Apple come out with something positive, like launching not one not two but three new notebooks and a new display there's not a mention - you just try going onto the BBC website and searching for 'Macbook' there's nothing about the new MBs.

Someone should complain. Hold on. Everyone should complain. Do your bit against the BBC (Biased Broadcasting Corporation) - visit this link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

And complain about their biased treatment of our beloved fruit company.

Did you know BBC's website runs on WebObjects? (last I heard it did anyway) not to mention Final Cut Pro in their post-production suites.

And another thing. Whilst we're all in the mood to complain...

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/

Complain about Microsoft's 'I'm a PC' ads. I feel they are misleading. Clearly all of the people in that series of ads are not PCs, they are human beings (just). But nevertheless. Complain to the ASA and get the MS ads banned on this basis.

God deluded: You are far too angry, you must live in the hell-hole they call Britain (or the UK, or England, or GB, or whatever the fuck its called this week)

Paul: You are a good boy, go to the top of the class and throw stones at God deluded, who is a dunce.

Anyone who thinks adverts are real is (a) british or (b) dense.

Stop watching so much TV, foolish brits. Get outside and play in the park.
(sorry, you cant do that because its full of knife murderers and paedophiles)

Britain = worst place on the planet, except for Guantanamo Bay.

God deluded: I am sure you arent really a dunce - go and live in a country where people arent so twisted.
The USA or Canada, surprisingly, are very pleasant places to live.
I can recommend San Francisco, Vancouver BC, Seattle, New York, Toronto, Montreal to name a few.

With truth in advertising standards in the UK, the way they are, how are they able to show any ads at all?

I mean, if they have an ad where the person puts on some snazzy aftershave is supposed to get them a hot babe, well, that's kaput. I mean, what other ads are there?

The ASA site complaints page is a recommended visit!

A few hits and a few complaints about Microsoft and security might wake them up......

@ KenC: EXACTLY!

Ads are FANTASY - hello little england, hello from planet reality, are you there......

Like when you meet a girl, you dont tell her that you drink too much or you have never been faithful - you tell her the story of how you saved Lassie from the bad guys, or how you shot Lassie for laughs. (depends on the type of girl)

In England, the buses have huge yellow seat belts so the cops can see if you wearing one when they drive by.

In England, they have OVER 6 million cameras watching you.

Its a bit like East Germany, but the food isnt as good.

@Predrag
Do you have any statistical evidence to support your assertion regarding the relative intelligence of American and UK commercial television audiences? If American audiences aren't smarter now, a few generations of over-protective nannying by the ASA and they will be.

Nov 26, 08 - 03:28 pm Comment from: luke255

@MDN The iPhone in the Advert is not on Wi-Fi, it's on 3G. The advert is unrealistically quick and the ban is just. Maybe Apple will think before making crap like this again.

Nov 26, 08 - 03:30 pm Comment from: luke255

@Derek. Buses in England don't have seat belts you moron

At least it's not France being attacked this time.

(Even though a native English speaker cannot intimidate a Frenchman).

Bonne chance mes amis anglais et americains.


de Villiers

Wow, I never knew that xenophobia was contagious. And I thought this was a place to read and discuss Mac news. Shame on you (you know who you are)

Oh for ***** sake, get over yourselves. The ASA take ads to task that are misleading - this was misleading, end of story. If MS's "I'm a PC" ads stated something that wasn't true, such as Vista being the most secure OS ever, that'd get taken apart. If an aftershave ad actually said "this will get you a girl", that'd be banned too.

Nothing wrong with having high standards - which is why I assume we're Mac owners in the first place.

@Derek in Milan

HA HA HA!!!

This is fun. I actually left the UK over 5 years ago! 4 year in Argentina and the rest now in Spain. I would not live in the UK if you paid me, but the point is not living in the UK it's all the ignorance re: BBC et al and then all that anti english/british shit, its all so nasty and no matter what you can say about perceived national traits you can't judge individuals accordingly, its pretty certain that half the twats writing on here receive their wisdom/prejudices rather than finding stuff out for themselves, and in the end they love a good excuse to hate something.

oh and another PS

I wonder if this last comment will mysteriously disappear? they don't like criticism much on this site do they?

I love my iPhone...but hell naw that ad really did mislead lol

Nov 26, 08 - 07:18 pm Comment from: British Mac Head

Derek. I think you'll find that we have far fewer murders here in the UK in a year than they have in new york in a month. I met an American family who emigrated here from New York because they wanted their kids to grow up in a safer environment.

And as for CCTV cameras. They are only in city centres and private buildings and are not as ptolotic as you think. We don't have the infrastructure to monitor them. Now speed cameras are a problem. But every country has those.

Nov 26, 08 - 07:19 pm Comment from: British Mac Head

That should have said "as prolific as you think".

These 17 Brits are just sore that Acorn failed as an innovator and has become just another PC box assembler selling Microsoft Windows instead of RISC OS and are just taking it out on Apple (for some odd reason)

Nov 26, 08 - 10:44 pm Comment from: Derek in Milan

Lighten up guys!
Is this all serious? No, its just fun.
I dont really think England is a sinkhole of despairing criminals and their hapless gutless victims, lulled into a false sense of security by lying scheming politicians who live in high-security enclaves of luxurious depravity while the hoi-polloi murder each other in the parks and children and their single mothers watch and smoke crack, waiting for their heroin-addicted fathers to come along and beat them up and steal their welfare checks again.

Honest I dont.

I think the comment about murders isnt the point - life is just EASIER anywhere but England. Or Iceland, I suppose.

And Luke255? Of course they have seat-belts on buses you unobservant little apology for a Mac FanBois.

Nov 26, 08 - 11:21 pm Comment from: Mac4lfe

I can't believe some Brits don't realize that they are slowly loosing their freedoms to an over protective nanny state bent on protecting it's subjects from everything. People should be left alone to figure out life without the government doing it for them.

Nov 27, 08 - 02:20 am Comment from: Greg L

British regulators need to get better dental care really fast.

Nov 27, 08 - 03:43 am Comment from: Yours Smugly

Mymac4ever:
"Moron's"

So, what exactly belongs to this moron? Or perhaps you meant to say "morons"?

Derek in Milan - are you sure you're not actually Richard Littlejohn in Florida? Only I haven't heard such a load of fictional scaremongering since I last had the misfortune to stumble across one of his columns.

Also: buses don't have bloody seatbelts. Some coaches do, perhaps, but the average bus doesn't. And given I'm in the UK this very second and can see buses (without seatbelts) go past from my lounge window, I think I've probably got a better idea of what the current situation is than someone living in Milan.

Mac4life - As for the Nanny state, are you actually suggesting it's better to have an advertising system where everyone is allowed to lie through their teeth and it's down to the consumer to investigate every claim themselves?

MDN magic word = feel. As in "I feel that would be a really stupid idea"

Nov 27, 08 - 05:35 am Comment from: AJKphotography

I don't know why MDN makes a point of talking about Wi-Fi speed when most people would assume that 3G was being used.

The anti-British/English rants are getting tiresome but they do at least remind me how happy I am to live here in England's green and pleasant land.

I don't know why there is an equivocation developing in this thread between opposition to protecting people from having to use their critical faculty and xenophobia. Except, perhaps that ethnic nationalism voids the need, or possibility, of reasoned argument.

Apple has not been accused, indicted or convicted of fraud or a similar offense in relation to this commercial. The ASA is not protecting consumers from fraud, just the possibility that a tiny number of viewers might be so slack-minded as to unthinkingly accept the images on their television as universally representative of iPhone performance under all circumstances. The ASA, in response to 17 complaints, has decided that audiences in the UK are too flaccid minded to evaluate images and claims rationally. Protecting television viewers from the need to actively reason, simply because some statistically measurable minority (or majority) of them are disinclined to acts of cognition is not 'progressive', its just aristocratic condescension. Alternately laziness masquerading as moral outrage.

Oh my god, did you do communications studies or some such nonsense, whereby you try to make the simple complicated, or the common sensical incomprehensible, by obfuscation, verbal diarrhea, on some other malodorous excretion masquerading as errr...'communication'?

Well Bob? prey tell. Do enlighten us...

@ @Bob

Your baroquely Latinate question is sufficiently closed ended that it admits of a one word response, 'no'.

Perhaps if you addressed the substance of my comment rather than the form there would be a need for a more thoughtful reply.

As an aside, the phrase is 'Pray tell'.

Dear Bob,

Long before one can get to the gist of what you are saying the shutters have come down...

"equivocation developing in this thread between opposition to protecting people from having to use their critical faculty and xenophobia"

I am sorry but this is just pure verbiage for verbiage's sake!

why not dichotomy or perhaps schism? equivocation is just not the right word, quite frankly it's too equivocal!

And the argument you seem to be proposing is that we should actively encourage adverts etc to lie to keep the brain dead viewer on their toes?

Is this therefore a rational that can apply to electing presidents or prime ministers? Elect a lying corrupt lackey of some higher interest in order to catch them out whenever they decide to invade a country or bomb another, or lock up anybody they chose, just to test the mental agility of a population?

Well it did not work did it? Or rather when the penny finally dropped it was way too late for perhaps several hundred poor souls who never had a say in the matter..

An interesting rational BOB. Is this the ultimate free market rational? Should we pat the American banks on the back for their cunningness in pulling the wool over everyone's eyes so long?

PS
I forgot to add it's prey tell because as an atheist I cannot in conscience use the other spelling

@ @Bob

While I detect from your endearment that I am precious to you, I fear we must part ways in the matter of your critique of what you charmingly refer to as my 'verbiage for verbiage's sake'. Your objections in detail then;

Long before one can get to the gist of what you are saying the shutters have come down...

With respect, I wrote my comments primarily to entertain myself and inform those with attention spans longer than sixty seconds.

why not dichotomy or perhaps schism?

Because a plain reading of the sentence reveals not that I am referring to a conflict which has manifested itself between two irreconcilable opposites or contraries, but rather that one position (xenophobia) has been conflated with another (opposition to ASA 'protection').

equivocation is just not the right word, quite frankly it's too equivocal!

From Dictionary.com:

e⋅quiv⋅o⋅ca⋅tion –noun
1. the use of equivocal or ambiguous expressions, esp. in order to mislead or hedge; prevarication.

And the argument you seem to be proposing is that we should actively encourage adverts etc to lie to keep the brain dead viewer on their toes?

You seem to grasp the style if not the meaning of equivocation, as you precisely invert my argument. All lies are misleading, but not all those misled have been lied to. To forbid speech which is not fraudulent simply because those who choose not to exercise their powers of reason may be misled is merely the accommodation of the petulant anti-effort mentalities that expect third parties to render the world harmless to them in their (intellectual) repose.

Is this therefore a rational that can apply...ultimate free market rational?...

The remainder of your non sequitur argument is unnecessary to address, as it is premised on the equivocation between advocating lying and merely refraining from censoring speech which might be misunderstood by those disposed to evade cognition. Except of course to point out that the word that fits the above phrases is 'rationale'.

Sincerely,
Bob ;P

@ @Bob's PS

The word 'pray' in pray tell is an archaic form of 'please' as found in Shakespeare, and in no way implies supplication to Deity.

Nov 28, 08 - 03:12 am Comment from: British Mac Head

@Bob
Bagibledy gabba goobledy gobba... Yeah!
What he said