Apple in trouble over iPhone speed ad

Californian gadget vendor Apple has fallen foul of the UK’s advertising watchdog yet again, this time for over exaggerating the web speed of the iPhone 3G.

Apple’s latest UK TV ad for the device was peppered with the term “really fast,” whenever it made reference to the internet connectivity. But a total of 17 viewers complained that Apple oversold the speed of the connection.

The US firm claimed that the ad was intended as a comparison between the older 2G technology of the first generation iPhone, and the newer 3G model, and reckoned that most viewers would understand this.

While the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) noted this intention, it upheld the complaints on the basis that viewers might actually expect the device to operate as quickly as demonstrated in the ad, which may well not be the case in a real world environment.

The ad has since been pulled, but it’s not the first time Apple has had its wrists slapped by the ASA.

In the summer the company caught flak from the advertising watchdog, over its claim that ‘all’ of the internet is accessible from the iPhone.

In its TV ads, Apple claims, “all the parts of the internet are on the iPhone,” but consumers complained the claim is misleading because the device does not support Flash or Java, which is required to access many web sites.