Arbitrary Musings

As I was driving in to work this morning, an advertisement came on the radio (which I’ll describe in a bit). I’ve heard this ad before, but this time it served as a stimulus for a blog post. Beware, oh readers, for this entry is on the technical side of my interests. So, turn away now, or stay and (possibly) learn a bit. There’s even a minor rant about the iPhone. Did I get your attention? No matter…Onward!

The theme for this overall post is about some of the technical information that advertisers (or marketing folks) don’t tell you. Now, normally I’d be all for the hiding of tech talk. After all, “speak the user’s language” is a usability heuristic that has been around from some 20-odd years. However, I’m specifically talking about two recent advertisements that:

a) throw a little technical jargon in, but not enough to give the user a clear picture, or
b) hide the technical background which can give a misleading impression of a product/service.

Let’s start with the first advertising method, which is also what prompted this blog entry. While listening my usual morning radio show, an advertisement for Comcast’s high speed internet service came on. Part of the advertisement mentions “blazing 12 Meg speeds,” or something to that matter. The important thing that stuck in my mind is “12 Meg!” Now, I know what that means, but I’m fairly certain that a non-technical user, upon hearing “Meg”, will think of “Megabyte“. Most people who have downloaded something off the big truck series of tubes will relate the transfer of data relative to a second. Therefore, I’m sure that Comcast wanted to give the impression that their service has transfer rates of 12 Megabytes per second.

The problem is that most people don’t know the difference between Megabytes per second and Megabits per second. Since there are 8 bits in 1 byte, you’ll actually see maximum data transfer rates of around 1 ½ Megabytes per second. (Side note: I use this internet service at home, and I haven’t reached that transfer rate). Now, I will grant you, it’s still quite fast in this day and age.  However, my point comes down to this: if the average user knows about Megabytes per second, then advertise it in that fashion!

Okay, we’re halfway through. Still with me? Let’s get onto hiding the technology, and I want to relate it specifically to the iPhone. Since I’m sure this is going to be a touchy subject, let me first state that if I wasn’t locked into my current carrier’s plan, I’d buy one NOW. I want one. With that said, let’s talk about those advertisements that are displayed non-stop. They’re wonderful ads, but they never state the fact that everything you see is done when the phone is in transferring data through Wi-Fi mode and not on the cellular network (EDGE). Why does it matter? Here’s a quote from CNET’s EDGE vs. Wi-Fi test results:

EDGE averaged a download time of 15.69 minutes for a 9.4MB file, while Wi-Fi required a mere 1.18 minutes. In the end, our test results indicate that the iPhone’s Wi-Fi connection is about 13 times faster than using EDGE

What difference could it make in real life? Take a look at this video of browsing the New York Times using AT&T’s EDGE connection.

My grievance isn’t with the iPhone in any way here; rather, it’s the fact that the commercial never mentions the conditions under which the video was made. Not even a disclaimer in microscopic text stating “Wi-Fi connection. Actual speeds may vary.”

So, what the hell am I trying to say? Simply put, be honest when advertising products and services to users. I just needed to get all of that off of my chest. Oh, and buy me an iPhone too.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 4:14 pm and is filed under gripes, technology.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.