Apple offers refunds for new iPad in Australia over 4G


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US technology firm Apple has offered to refund Australian customers who felt misled about the 4G capabilities of the new iPad.

The country's consumer watchdog has taken Apple to court for false advertising because the tablet computer does not work on Australia's 4G network.

Apple's lawyers said they were willing to print a clarification.

However the company does not accept that it misled customers.

Australia's Competition and Consumer Commission said on Tuesday "that Apple's recent promotion of the new 'iPad with WiFi + 4G' is misleading because it represents to Australian consumers that the product can, with a SIM card, connect to a 4G mobile data network in Australia, when this is not the case".

The watchdog then lodged a complaint at the Federal Court in Melbourne.

At a preliminary hearing, Apple lawyer Paul Anastassiou said Apple had never claimed the device would work fully on the current 4G network operated by Telstra.

Apple says the new iPad works on what is globally accepted to be a 4G network.

The matter could go to full trial after the Easter break.

Source: BBC News

And this is why LTE-A/WiMAX2 should only be classed as 4G, not the retarded naming scheme that carriers have where anything faster than 3G is considered 4G (HSDPA, HSPA+, WiMAX etc etc). :rolleyes:

Edit: Oops apparently Telstra does have a 4g LTE network, my bad!

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It supports LTE. The issue is the Australians use a different frequency to America so the 4G LTE feature is useless to Australians and I don't think it should be advertised there. Apple is in the wrong here for promoting it.

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Edit: Oops apparently Telstra does have a 4g LTE network, my bad!

Except LTE still doesn't meet the original specification for 4G set by the ITU. HPSA+ and LTE were both technically 3G until the ITU said both could be considered 4G.

Apple was technically right in their advertising, but since it didn't jive with the Australian market's vision of 4G (LTE), they were still misleading consumers. I'm glad they're offering refunds.

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