Apple iCloud "effortless to use" claims cleared by ad regulator

Apple has been cleared of breaching advertising guidelines by describing its iCloud service as "automatic and effortless" to use on any device.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) was prompted to investigate the claims, which featured in an online ad, after someone complained that iCloud was not "automatic and effortless" to use on Mac computers.

In a statement to the ASA, Apple stood by the advert and said iCloud is automatic and effortless to use once it has been switched on.

"Macs sync data in exactly the same way [as] other Apple devices, once iCloud has been enabled and the document saved in iCloud," said the statement.

Following its investigation, the ASA concluded the advert had not exaggerated the product's functionality or misled users, and that no advertising guidelines had been breached.

The regulator also said the person that complained may have misunderstood how iCloud works.

"The complainant believed...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," the ASA stated.

"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 [and] that the claim was not misleading."