Australian Consumer Watchdog Sues Apple Over iPad Marketing

Fluffeh writes "Australia's competition regulator will today take iconic technology giant Apple to court for advertising its new iPad tablet as featuring '4G' speeds — which are not supported on Australian telecommunications networks. One of the key features of the new iPad is support for 4G speeds, however, the 4G speeds which the new iPad supports will not be available in Australia, with Apple's technical specifications page only listing it as supporting the 700Mhz and 2100Mhz spectrum bands, neither of which are being used by Australian telcos to provide 4G services. The case may be a bit shaky, though, as Apple does state in the fine print: '4G LTE is supported only on AT&T and Verizon networks in the US; and on Bell, Rogers and Telus networks in Canada. Data plans sold separately. See your carrier for details.'"

Re:Wtf frequency limits?

[morcego]

Even if the radios can, the main problem is the antenna. Specially if you need power efficiency, which is the case of mobile devices. Losing 60% of your output power due to antenna impedance difference is not something you can afford to have. And that is only one of the issues, the first one that poped in my head, actually. I'm sure there are many others.

Re:IMHO Apple is becoming a scummy advertiser

[xSacha]

Uh, it's US which runs on different bands to the rest of the world.
Europe and Asia are using Australia's bands.

While Telstra is the only one with a 4G network right now, Optus is launching one in a month and Vodafone is soon to follow.

Re:IMHO Apple is becoming a scummy advertiser

[xSacha]

You can easily get WiFi in your house and it is known you will need to transmit WiFi to receive it. Worst case scenario you can go to a coffee shop and get WiFi.
But the 4G on the tablet won't receive the 4G that the local Telcos provide. If you want to use that 4G, you'll have no luck in Australia, Europe, Asia. You have to go to North America!

Re:IMHO Apple is becoming a scummy advertiser

[ATMAvatar]

Whenever there is a global standard and a question on whether the US is following it, the safest best is that the US isn't.

Re:Does fine print supercede large print?

[bloodhawk]

The fine print doesn't make the case shaky at all. In Australia if your ad can be misconstrued as advertising something they don't provide, then no amount of fine print, small print, eula or any other disclaimer they want to add will excuse them from the false advertising laws. They are there to protect consumers from being tricked into making a purchase based on misleading advertising and the litmus test is whether a reasonable person could be fooled into thinking that buying a IPAD 3 would give them 4G access in Australia, given the ads that is a pretty definite yes.

Re:IMHO Apple is becoming a scummy advertiser

[arisvega]

Actually, in this case, it's not Apple's fault ..

Actually, it is.

The case may be a bit shaky, though, ..

No it mightn't. It looks pretty straightforward to me. See below.

as Apple does state in the fine print: '4G LTE is supported only on AT&T and Verizon networks in the US;

Oh I get it- so as long as it does state it in the "fine print", then Apple et. al. are allowed to perform misleading advertizing? Or is there another point here that I am missing?

Sorry about the tone, but I tend to be overenthousiastic when consumer protection laws bite megacorps in the arse.