“Apple Inc. has been hit with another class-action lawsuit. This time the formal complaint comes courtesy of a pair of MacBook and MacBook Pro owners who charge the company with falsely advertising the quality and capabilities of the displays used in the Intel notebooks,” Prince McLean reports for AppleInsider.
“In the May 3rd filing with the Superior Court of California for the County of San Diego, private citizens Fred Greaves and Dave Gatley are seeking multiple forms of relief and reimbursement, in addition to an injunction that would prevent Apple from continuing to market its existing notebook displays alongside claims that they support ‘millions of colors’ and offer views ‘simply unavailable on other portables,'” McLean reports.
McLean reports, “Specifically, they charge that the Cupertino-based company’s MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook displays are only capable of displaying the ‘illusion of millions of colors through the use of a software technique referred to as ‘dithering,’ which causes nearby pixels on the display to use slightly varying shades of colors that trick the human eye into perceiving the desired color even though it is not truly that color.'”
“Citations in the suit imply that the Apple notebooks may employ sub-par displays only capable of 6 bits per channel (18-bit color), rather than 8 bits per channel, making them capable of displaying only 262,144 colors without dithering, as opposed to millions. That would explain why within weeks of purchase, a flood of customers reported that their MacBook and MacBook Pro displays appeared ‘grainy’ or ‘sparkly,’ according to the complaint,” McLean reports.
More in the full article, including a copy of the complaint (pdf), here.
It seems that most of you don’t understand the problem. Here it is explained for dummies:
The 18-bit color limitation (rather than 24-bit advertised specs) has nothing to do with the integrated graphics chipset, this is due to a low-quality panel. Just take a quick look at Wikipedia to understand what are the different types of TFT LCD panels, and you’ll understand that for each notebook or TFT screen, the vendor (Apple, Dell, HP, Toshiba, etc.) can choose which quality of panel to use. It appears that for MacBook’s and MacBook Pro’s, Apple has chosen a lower quality panel with only 18-bits rather than 24-bits. This is very disappointing. I can tell you that my iMac G5 uses a high-quality 24-bit panel, but newer Intel iMac’s use a lower-quality 18-bit panel, and you can really see the difference in quality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TFT_LCD
I think it’s obvious that no matter what whatever they decide to do it’ll be pretty close to whatever they think it’ll have to be one way or another, because otherwise, no matter how hard they try the excuse that gets offered won’t hold a candle to my argument or yours, despite the money that is spent trying to decide about how often they can make a go of it, remembering always that what you say isn’t as important as what you do both in this life and in the next, which is often discounted, but rarely understood, no matter how often it is said (whether to the neophytes or the veterans), as long as they are perfectly clear that “color” and “dithering” are concepts and are therefore less objective than subjective, no matter what anyone else reads on this or any other blog where lawsuits are frequently covered, though without the depth of understanding and reporting that would appear to be necessary for the average reader to comprehend even the most basic first concepts covered, much less the startling realities that, while transcending the printed word, still begin there before unfurling their brilliance throughout the entire ecosystem in question.
You don’t know the history of bullshit. I do.
I think it’s obvious that no matter what whatever they decide to do it’ll be pretty close to whatever they think it’ll have to be one way or another, because otherwise, no matter how hard they try the excuse that gets offered won’t hold a candle to my argument or yours, despite the money that is spent trying to decide about how often they can make a go of it, remembering always that what you say isn’t as important as what you do both in this life and in the next, which is often discounted, but rarely understood, no matter how often it is said (whether to the neophytes or the veterans), as long as they are perfectly clear that “color” and “dithering” are concepts and are therefore less objective than subjective, no matter what anyone else reads on this or any other blog where lawsuits are frequently covered, though without the depth of understanding and reporting that would appear to be necessary for the average reader to comprehend even the most basic first concepts covered, much less the startling realities that, while transcending the printed word, still begin there before unfurling their brilliance throughout the entire ecosystem in question.
You don’t know the history of bullshit. I do.
I think it’s obvious that no matter what whatever they decide to do it’ll be pretty close to whatever they think it’ll have to be one way or another, because otherwise, no matter how hard they try the excuse that gets offered won’t hold a candle to my argument or yours, despite the money that is spent trying to decide about how often they can make a go of it, remembering always that what you say isn’t as important as what you do both in this life and in the next, which is often discounted, but rarely understood, no matter how often it is said (whether to the neophytes or the veterans), as long as they are perfectly clear that “color” and “dithering” are concepts and are therefore less objective than subjective, no matter what anyone else reads on this or any other blog where lawsuits are frequently covered, though without the depth of understanding and reporting that would appear to be necessary for the average reader to comprehend even the most basic first concepts covered, much less the startling realities that, while transcending the printed word, still begin there before unfurling their brilliance throughout the entire ecosystem in question.
You don’t know the history of bullshit. I do.
I think it’s obvious that no matter what whatever they decide to do it’ll be pretty close to whatever they think it’ll have to be one way or another, because otherwise, no matter how hard they try the excuse that gets offered won’t hold a candle to my argument or yours, despite the money that is spent trying to decide about how often they can make a go of it, remembering always that what you say isn’t as important as what you do both in this life and in the next, which is often discounted, but rarely understood, no matter how often it is said (whether to the neophytes or the veterans), as long as they are perfectly clear that “color” and “dithering” are concepts and are therefore less objective than subjective, no matter what anyone else reads on this or any other blog where lawsuits are frequently covered, though without the depth of understanding and reporting that would appear to be necessary for the average reader to comprehend even the most basic first concepts covered, much less the startling realities that, while transcending the printed word, still begin there before unfurling their brilliance throughout the entire ecosystem in question.
You don’t know the history of bullshit. I do.
I tend to agree with this. Apple’s displays are not as good as others I have seen. That being said, Windows sucks so bad with it’s lack of anti-aliasing and $hit interface, OS X still looks better. But if the charge has merit Apple should fix it.
I have to agree also. I returned a Macbook Pro because of this issue and got a 24 inch Intel iMac which is crystal clear in comparison. Go to an Apple store and look at the 15 inch Macbook Pro screen and then look at the 24 inch iMac screen. You cannot miss the difference. Trust me. I have been holding out hoping the next gen Macbook Pro will have a better display. Maybe this lawsuit will help shift things along at Apple and get this fixed.
“Well, apparently it is affecting my iMac display, because this lawsuit looks like bullsh!t on it…..”
BWAAHAAHAA!
MW: OUR lovely judicial system, or litigation system, should I say.
Ooooh, I wanna sue the print industry, if you look really close all those photos in magazines are made up of little dots of colour, and there are only FOUR different colours and one is BLACK which isn’t even a colour! They trick me into seeing millions of colours, those bastards! Tis witchcraft I say, burn them at the stake, then take them to court!
Maybe those new LED-LCD displays will be better.
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i have not noticed any banding issues on my macbook or my intel imac, or my collegues’ macbook pro’s.
could this be an issue limited to a certain batch of laptops?
i tell you what though, dont try and tell me any dell or sony or toshiba laptop has a better display than any of apples lineup because they simply arn’t in the same league.
Calling all Applelytes! Calling all Applelytes! Apple inc. needs you all to file a class-action lawsuit against all television makers, all computer monitors, all HD definition screens and all cinemas.
Why?
All CRT screens employ single line sweep of the CR gun to fool our eyes that we are seeing a complete picture. Technically our eyes are fed a series of lines which are combined by our brains to see a single picture.
HD display’s do not show a high definition picture contrary to belief. Sony claims that Blue-Ray is the only true HD because the picture scan is from top to bottom in continous lines. (see CRT) They refute the other standard because they claim that it operates on the CRT principle which is to scan every other line, this they claim is not true HD.
Cinema screens employ a principle that fools our brains by displaying in very quick succession still images. Our eyes are continously relaying images to the brain faster than the brain can process.
So in reality when you break down all these systems of display, they prey on our inability to process images fast enough to actually breakdown the still image.
Computer screens when in use to display still images allow our brains to process the individual image and therefor the individual components that constitute the picture.
It is possible for our eyes to actually see a single pixel, I should know, my monitor has a dead pixel, it is very noticeable when the background colour is different to it.
So all Applelytes take arms!! Sue Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, Phillips, Bush, Panasonic, HP, Dell, DGM in other words ALL display makers and cinema halls.
Let us see how the courts and the judicial system decide to interpret frivolous lawsuits such as the one outlined above.
I’m color blind and cannot “see” thousands let alone millions of colors, can I join the lawsuit? People really need to get a life!
I came back to see if someone perhaps responded to my comment. I saw some other comments I did not understand so I went back and finished reading the PDF.
The problems I see within this suit is this:
A) They are using ‘forum’ posts as evidence of complaints about the resolution/pixilation of the displays. Some of them really aren’t complaints from what I saw, either. In a court of law, opinions only go so far.
B) I don’t know the software or hardware involved, but Apple Inc. knows good and well not to advertise 1,000,000 colors if it can’t produce it. Seems to me, it’s a matter of people speculating it’s a million or it’s not a million because of issues they have had, which, could have been isolated issues.
C) I think it’s great that the complaint was filed May 3rd of 2007, yet, they purchased the computer March of last year. This will hold a lot of bearing on the case. Thats like ordering a steak at a Capitol Grill and eating most of it then tell the waiter/waitress that you want a free one because it was under/over-cooked.
I’m sure Apple Inc. will be fine with all of this overhead. I’m not going to presume they are innocent or guilty but I think after reading this claim, it’s going to be rejected.
The eye can only see 32,000 colors. Point of fact.
@Mikeyo,
The assumption that the dithering problem was the integrated chipset stems from prior experience of video cards that could only output 16 bit color and being that the MacBook is the first Mac owned by my household that does not have a dedicated video card is not invalid as you infer. Furthermore, to insinuate that posters who do not have any hardware engineering expertise are dummies is crass. You could’ve presented your information in a more astute manner. Nonetheless, thank you for your point of information, as I will research it further beyond the limited information presented in Wikipedia.
I have absolutely noticed this. The dithering is very fine and does a good job even on complicated color ramps, but it is definitely there. In spite of this, the color representation on my MacBook screen is pretty good, even for relatively complex Photoshop work. The dithering doesn’t bother me much, but I believe the suit has merit technically.
Where did you get your facts? That is not true at all.
Just one reference:
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2006/JenniferLeong.shtml
BTW, I have worked in the field of color for well over a decade.
– Chris
I’ve never noticed any of the colour banding, but I thought the idea of dithering was to prevent banding, like with the old gif files that used dithering with 256 colours. However, I don’t like the shiny MacBook screens because the viewing angle is so narrow. If you tilt the screen it goes into a sort of reverse video in the dark areas. I use a MacBook Pro at work, but it’s one with a matte screen, and the viewing angle is way better.
18-bit versus 24-bit in iMacs and MacBooks? Looks like good ol’ Steve put the CRAP in CRAPPLE. I expect improvements in my technology, not cutting corners to fill Steve’s pocket with more lucre. It seems that consumers don’t have a choice, either. What a scum bag.
Well, the MacBook with its 1280×800 display cannot display more than 1,024,000 colors at a time because that it just does not have more pixels. The limit for the 17″ MacBook pro is 1,764,000 colors/pixels.
So neither of them is capable to display _millions_ of colors. But if they are 18-bit only, they would display only 262,144 colors at a time which is clearly not even a single million.
I just checked the specs pf the MacBook (pro) on apple.com and was surprised that they do not mention color depth at all, only the resoluton is mentioned. The settings in the control panel affect the graphics card and not the display hardware.
As much as I hate to say it, if Apple is indeed promising millions of colors on its display and they are not capable of true 24-bit output, then the suit is valid. I think this is going to boil down to the wording and meaning of the sales text.
Anyone ever bought a walking stick? for yourself or someone else?
Sue! Sue! Sue! I have yet to see a stick that can walk!!!!!!
Hey trolls buy a effing clue. Virtually all laptops use TN (twisted nematic) displays because they consume a fraction of the power a standard TTL display does.
If you say that TN displays aren’t capable of “real” 16 million colors because they dither 6 bit, then 80-85% of the desktop LCD’s sold aren’t capable either (including the crap from dell, acer, viewsonic and septre)
Poppycock, pure poppycock, I say. Why when I place my rose-colored glasses on, everything is just fine. Yes, just fine. La, la, la. Everything is fine. La, la, la. These glasses are great.