Absolutely that's the crux of the argument. And any repercussions boil down to a subtle but crucial difference between UK & US Advertising Law.
In the US, the Business that is advertising is somewhat protected legally in that the onus is on the individual to read any small print that might caveat the claims being made.
In the UK, you can include all the caveats, small print & supplemental information you want, but if there is any ambiguity in a statement or the slightest chance that somebody might read one thing and make a reasonable assumption that they later find is incorrect, then the Business is at fault.
It can get petty, I'll grant you. I remember Motorola's website/TV Commercials calling a Device "Virtually Indestructible" and something like "Dance-floor Proof, Splash Proof, Life Proof". Three people complained that their phone broke after they dropped it and although Motorola submitted a document detailing more than 300 tests the device had gone through as evidence that it was "Very Strongly Built", this wasn't enough for the ASA to forgive the choice of wording and hundreds of people were able to claim refunds on perfectly functional devices on the grounds that it was "mis-sold".
I'd wager that the claims of 4G are more ambiguous than Motorola's claims of indestructibility, which is why I can assert with a fair degree of confidence that the outcome of the investigation into Apple will result in them being forced to remove reference to "4G" in the UK. I'd imagine other European Countries/Australia etc. won't be too far behind.
Maybe we're all a bunch of pedants over here...but maybe we just expect a greater degree of clarity/honesty in the way information is presented to us. Perhaps I'm conditioned to ignore the small-print somewhat and take the main description at face-value. Perhaps I'm naive.
I actually enjoy US Advertising whenever I'm there, particularly when smaller businesses advertise on Local Networks. It's much more sensationalist and adversarial than I'm used to in Europe. I remember a small Fried Chicken Company running an Ad in California claiming that KFC contained Beef products (complete with Frankenstein-Cow Chickens etc.) and a local Car Sales Business claiming his main competitor was effectively a swindling liar.
Very entertaining, but it simply wouldn't get past the authorities in Europe. It's cultural probably. Most US States have loose restrictions on firearms ownership...but then really strict censorship laws governing things like nudity. In Germany, it's almost impossible to buy a firearm without proving you belong to a Rifle Club or similar, but perfectly acceptable to smoke, drink from a young age and pay for sex.
