Apple has succumbed to legal action and pressure from regulators in Australia and the UK and dropped the “4G” label from marketing material concerning the sale of its third generation iPad tablet.

No longer “Wi-Fi + 4G”, the model that connects to mobile data networks like Telstra's is now named “Wi-Fi + Cellular” on Apple's website. The change to the name was made on Saturday in Australia and not only affects the Australian online Apple store but the UK and US versions too, as well as others.

Apple's Australian branch said in a statement 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.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) took the tech giant to court in late March, alleging it had misled consumers when it came to marketing one of its latest iPad models as being compatible with 4G mobile data networks even though it could not connect to them in Australia. The Advertising Standards Authority in the United Kingdom was also investigating Apple for similar reasons, but without legal action.