Australian Gov’t Prepping Lawsuit Over Apple’s Use of “4G” On 3rd Gen iPad Box/Marketing.

The Australian gov’t has a bone to pick with Apple over their new iPad, specifically with how the LTE model is branded as “WiFi + 4G”. You see, while the 3rd-gen iPad does feature LTE radios inside, they are only for the U.S. and Canadian markets. Frequency differences abroad mean that “4G” model is much slower due to having to fall back to only HSPA+ networks. And therein lines the Australian government’s argument — that Apple is misleading Australian customers by selling them a tablet branded as “4G” but doesn’t fully work in the country.

We can see the point of their augment; it wouldn’t be hard (or devastating to Apple) if they simply removed the “4G” nomenclature from Australian-bound product. At the same time, Apple clearly lists on their website that the 4G LTE functionality is limited to U.S. and Canadian carriers (see screen capture below). Furthermore, because the powers that be caved and allowed a non-3G technology like HSPA+ to be classified as “4G”, we now have to deal with branding like “4G HSPA+” and “4G LTE”. In that light, Apple’s use of “WiFi + 4G” is vague enough as to include both HSPA+ and LTE. For the Australian government, however, that isn’t good enough. (Also, it appears Australia doesn’t buy into HSPA+ being a legitimate “4G” technology — something we’d agree with.)

 

In short: The Australian government is looking for a lawsuit where there isn’t one.


Source: accc.gov.au | Via: TNWiDownloadblog