Lawsuit targets Apple over laptop display dithering claims
PCs now better Macs than MacBooks are?
Apple has found itself at the receiving end of a lawsuit alleging it played fast and loose with the way it promoted the abilities of the displays it builds into its MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks.
The complaint claims said screens aren't up to scratch and that Apple knew as much when it said they were. Filed by two San Diego men, the lawsuit seeks class-action status to allow other aggrieved punters to join in.
Specifically, the allege that while Mac OS X can display millions of colours, the screens themselves can't, relying on an old technique, dithering, to display un-reproduceable colours by mixing up colours that can be shown by the monitor.
The result, the lawsuit alleges, are screens with a "grainy" and "sparkly" appearance. When buyers complained, Apple representatives told them not to be soo picky, it's alleged.
It's a tricky fight to win. What the plaintiffs assumed from Apple's claims that its notebook displays can show "millions of colours" - as all the laptops' tech specs and other collateral state - was that they could operate with a 24-bit colour depth: in other words, use three 8-bit bytes to record, respectively, red, blue and green values used to determine each pixel's colour.
If the lawsuit is correct, in as much as the MacBook and MacBook Pro's displays are not 24-bit or higher, then Apple can still maintain they show "millions" of colours, albeit millions kludged out of a smaller number of 'real' colours.
Apple's MacBook: does the display dither?
But if Apple hasn't broken the letter of the law, it has, if the lawsuit's claims about screen specifications are true, gone against the spirit of the law - and, indeed, the spirit of the Mac, which has always been about delivering top-notch colour reproduction. That's a key reason why designers and photographers have flocked to the platform over the years.
If the lawsuit is correct - and Apple has yet to respond one way or another - then they may find that the modern PC is actually more in tune with the Mac's visual ethos than Apple's own machines are.
COMMENTS
Re: Re: macs having better displays than any PCs?
I was referring to the earlier comment stating that macs have better displays than any PCs. Seeing as how my PC has the same Samsung display I dont see any foundation for his claim. Im not a fanboy, I use Wintels and always have.
I dont disagree that Apple was probably cheating on their ads I just dont like class action lawsuits because their only purpose is to make the lawyers lots of money.
Laptops have additional outputs
The computers in question would still have auxiliary output to monitors where the colors would have been displayable without dithering. There are additional benefits like blending which aggregates colors better prior to dithering if you have more colors. I don't think it is a tough case to make that a "system" should support a color display of the claimed quality. What makes it tough is the escape hatch provided by external display support etc.
Title
"Today more than ever, Macs are PC's. The difference is almost entirely software. In fact if Apple choose to allow it, their operating system could run perfectly fine on commodity hardware. The only reason it can't is pure marketing. After all both Windows and Linux can run on the "Mac" (aka PC) hardware."
Hardly marketing why Apple wouldn't want to allow OS X to run on commodity hardware... the reason Apple have such a great following is the incredibly strict guidelines on software/hardware... programs are designed to run on a specific hardware set, so no new cheap Chinese import graphics cards that claims to be the bees knees can be used, but these could be bought and when plugged into your PC causes XP (or god forbid Vista) to have issues and refuse to work.
Apple are in control of their market as they make the whole package, Microsoft et al have to develop OS's to work with a nigh on infinite combination of hardware configurations, which is a pretty daunting task in my opinion
Re: macs having better displays than any PCs?
Today more than ever, Macs are PC's. The difference is almost entirely software. In fact if Apple choose to allow it, their operating system could run perfectly fine on commodity hardware. The only reason it can't is pure marketing. After all both Windows and Linux can run on the "Mac" (aka PC) hardware.
So, yes Macs are PC's, but so what?
I have no experience with these dithering displays, however if there is a problem and Apple did in fact lie, then it is irrelevant where they got the displays from.
"Apparently that guy missed the memo that Apple doesnt actually built displays but buys them like everyone else."
If Apple advertises "X", they must produce X. If X was bought through another company, Apple may have a case against that company. However this certainly can't reduce Apple's responsibility for truthful advertising to customers.
macs having better displays than any PCs?
Apparently that guy missed the memo that Apple doesnt actually built displays but buys them like everyone else. Everyone else being PCs.
I hate class-action lawyers and hope this fails miserably achieving nothing more than costing this guy money.
