Ad description

An online ad, on www.apple.com for the iCloud service stated "iCloud. Your documents everywhere. All your documents. On all your devices. With iCloud, you can create documents in Pages on your Mac and access them on your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. And vice versa. You can edit them from anywhere - on any device you use. Changes you make on one device are updated on all your devices. It's automatic and effortless. And suddenly, any place is the easiest place to work".

Issue

The complainant challenged whether the claim "Changes you make on one device are updated on all your devices. It's automatic and effortless" was misleading, because they understood that this functionality did not currently work for Macs in a way that was "automatic and effortless".

Response

Apple (UK) Ltd stated that iCloud was automatic and effortless once it had been enabled.  They explained that iCloud was turned off on all Macs and iOS devices by default because not all users would want to use cloud based services, for various reasons.  It was prominently communicated to users that iCloud needed to be enabled on all devices in order to make full use of the service.  Apple stated that this information was accessible on the main marketing pages for iCloud.  They also stated that during the 'first run' of a new Mac or iOS device, users were provided with an opportunity to activate some or all of the iCloud offerings.  Once iCloud had been enabled on all devices and a document was saved to iCloud, that document would be updated with any edits made on Apple mobile devices or Macs that had the relevant settings switched on.  In summary, Macs synced data in exactly the same way that other Apple devices did, once iCloud had been enabled and the document had been saved in iCloud.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted that the complainant believed that the updating and syncing of documents using Pages and iCloud did not fully work on Mac devices.  The complainant believed that, when editing a document on a Mac, users had to first copy the document from iCloud to their Mac desktop, make changes and then upload the amended document back onto iCloud.  Because we understood that this was not the case and that the service was automatic and effortless across all relevant devices once the settings had been correctly configured, we concluded that the claim was not misleading.

We investigated the ad under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules  3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.  (Misleading advertising),  3.7 3.7 Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers are likely to regard as objective and that are capable of objective substantiation. The ASA may regard claims as misleading in the absence of adequate substantiation.  (substantiation) and  3.11 3.11 Marketing communications must not mislead consumers by exaggerating the capability or performance of a product.  (Exaggeration) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

3.1     3.11     3.7    


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