Stefan Mileschin

After weeks, Jobs' Mob has finally agreed to bow down to Aussie regulators and stop calling its iPad 4G down under and in the UK.

Watchdogs in the UK and Australia growled at Apple for calling its iPad 4G when it did not work on any 4G systems available in those countries.

True the tablet could handle 4G, but only in the US, which is a pretty long way to go to download your Coldplay collection at the high speeds that 4G offers.

What is surprising is that it has taken Apple that long to realise that you can't sell a product which does not do what it says in the tin.

It look some pretty serious legal threats before Jobs' Mob moved on changing its marketing.

This means that there will be no such thing as the "Wi-Fi + 4G", the model that connects to mobile data networks like Telstra's is now named "Wi-Fi + Cellular" on Apple's website.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the change affects not just the Australian online Apple store but the UK and US versions too.

Apple's Australian branch blamed telcos for the problem. They said that because telecommunications companies "do not all refer to their high-speed networks with the same terminology" it had therefore "decided to use 'Wi-Fi + Cellular' as a simple term" which describes all of the networks supported by the new iPad.

This has to be one of the most cheesy excuses possible. Apple knew when it marketed the iPad as 4G the standard it was using was only available in a small part of its market and it pressed ahead anyway. Blaming the telcos is like saying we made a product for a small segment of the US market, it is not our fault that the rest of the world does not follow one US telco.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) took the tech giant to court in late March, alleging it had misled consumers. The Advertising Standards Authority in the United Kingdom was also investigating Apple for similar reasons.

But what is amazing that even after Apple conceded in Victoria's Federal Court in March that the iPad model that connects to mobile networks was not compatible with 4G networks in Australia it took so long to stop offering the "4G" version.

All it did was agree to display the comment that it did not support Australian 4G LTE networks and WiMAX networks. It never promised to change the product's name.

http://news.techeye.net/mobile/apple...g-to-customers