That ad wasn't overly misleading. Saying "all parts of the internet are on the iphone" and then adding "except java and flash" wouldn't really flow well into the ad, so its no suprise they left that out. I don't think the commercial was intended to be misleading at all, but rather just showcase that the iphone internet experience is much more capable than the competition. Its really up to the consumer to do the research on the particular technologies that the iphone does and dosn't have. Hard to frame everything in a 30 second tv spot.
I guess i'd define "capable" as having the best browser experience ever experienced on a cell phone. The competition may have java and flash, but the competition also dosn't have the touch based technology combined with the the design aesthetics that the iphone has. So when I mention "capable" and they use "the internet", you can say in a sense that they are talking about the iphone internet experience thats unique to that device even without the java and flash.
When people at large (i.e., a majority of people likely to buy the phone) think that "the Internet" is the same as "the web" (which is what they meant), it's not really surprising that they phrased it the way they did.
In fact, the "twice as fast" was removed from the ads in Canada and replaced by something like "pretty fast". Also absent from Apple Canada website (http://www.apple.com/ca/)
The "half the price" part is indeed a very annoying marketing trick.
Apple should advertise the lack of Flash as a feature :) All joking aside I don't find it that misleading. I suspect that the people who complained to the ASA were not the general public but competitors just looking to take Apple down a peg or two.
Claiming support for an extensible technology should not then require that all extensions are supported. Further, many websites require custom ActiveX controls, which non-MS browsers cannot support. While I am a proponent of accountability and upset about the lack of flash support on the iPhone, I'd rather see "Unlimited" have its meaning restored than chasing ambiguous edge cases like this (but I don't know if they even have that problem in the UK.)
Then again, they are just banning the Ad in its current form, and not taking other action against Apple. If Apple added "standard" to their description of the "entire internet", then they should be free and clear while also furthering the case for the <canvas> tag. That'd make me happy.
