Complaint About Apple iPhone Advert Dismissed

A complaint against a recent television advert for Apple's iPhone has been dismissed by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The advert had a  voice-over stated "If you need to find a cab in a strange city, theres an app for that. Or figure out your share of the bill for a table of five, theres an app for that. Or fix a wobbly bookshelf, theres even an app for that. Yep theres an app for just about anything. Only on the iPhone."

Ten people wrote to the ASA complaining that the advert was misleading, because although the voice-over stated "Only on the iPhone", the Android based G1 phone had a similar application market place from which a range of applications could be downloaded.

Apple argued that the claim "only on the iPhone" came directly after the comment "there's an app for that" and was a reference to its App store, which it said was significantly larger than the store available for G1 phone users.

The ASA noted the ad demonstrated a range of applications before the voice-over stated "theres an app for just about anything. Only on the iPhone". The advertising regulator therefore considered viewers would understand the claim "Only on the iPhone" to refer to the range of apps available and the user experience of the App Store and iPhone, and not that they were the only company to provide applications for mobile phones.

Because Apple had shown there were far more applications available for the iPhone than the G1 phone, and user-experience of the iPhone and the app store was distinct from its competitor, the ASA says that it concluded the claim "Only on the iPhone" was justified and not misleading.

Posted to the site on 29th July 2009