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Apple Sued Over 'Lacking' Macbook Display
qu1j0t3 writes "Business 2.0 reports that two MacBook owners have filed a class action lawsuit charging Apple with deceptive advertising, as well as misrepresentation and unfair competition over the use of the phrase 'millions of colors' to describe the capability of the LCD displays in MacBook and MacBook Pro computers. The article likens the complaint to an an angry forum thread, and is more than a little bit skeptical of the plaintiff's motives. Perhaps it's their uncanny attention to detail. From the filing: 'The reality is that notwithstanding Apple's misrepresentations and suggestions that its MacBook and MacBook Pro display millions of colors, the 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.'
Now all we will have is three color displays, and we won't have any numbers to guage them with.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
Even your eyes process colours through a small spectrum into what we see as a full vibrant spectrum. Functionally, for a computer display (don't get all philosophical on me), what is the difference between dithered and actually displayed if all the colours are present and rendered faithfully. All monitors do this, or rather all monitors and video cards. Do they sue the video card manufacturers as that's the other half of the equation...
This is just another symptom of an overly-litigious society with an over-population of lawyers.
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History, repeat thyself. Honestly, there's a legitimate point to that. If the advertised specs say that it can display "millions of colors", then there's a reasonable expectation that a given pixel will be able to represent over 1 million colors (most likely 16MiColors, but who's counting?). Yeah, this might seem a little silly, but if you can't deliver then don't promise it.
I can imagine a graphics geek being pretty legitimately pissed about seeing gradients where he shouldn't, in the same way that if they advertised a 128-bit FPU, a programmer might be a little annoyed to find that it was really "32-bit but we cleverly fake the rest".
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
6 bit panels are in fact not advertised as 8 bit.
What most of the industry does is quite sneaky: If it is an 8 bit panel, then each pixel can display 256 x 256 x 256 different colors, that is about 16.7 million colors.
If it is a 6 bit panel, then you can use dithering with four pixels to achieve 253 different values in each color component (that is 253, not 256), so you can display 253 x 253 x 253 different colors using dithering, that makes 16.2 million colors. 16.2 million, not 16.7 million. Check the specs on any LCD monitor that you see, and you won't find any advertising 262,000 colors but plenty advertising 16.2 millions.
Well, Apple claims "millions" which is completely in line with industry practice both for 6 bit and 8 bit panels.
Which is sad as I know next to nothing. Hopefully they'll get the right expert and the judge will listen.
Hmm... dithered images are not true-colour, so they don't display millions of colours any more than a newspaper displays more than 4 (CMYK). It gives the illusion of more, but it's not actually giving more. This is far from a laughable claim. The whole 10^6/2^20 discrepancy is laughable, this is clearly a case of false advertising. And, fyi, courts of law are by definition the most pedantic out there, as they're dealing with really important things, and so have to get to the bottom of even the most ridiculous claim. The American Idol panel is the least pedantic example I can think of :)
I would think so considering Apple offers their Macbooks as "millions of colors" rather than 16.7 million, who knows though if the color/response time is a big enough issue they may be required to state whether theirs is 6-bit or 8-bit. Then again, if your producing videos or print, you damn well ought to understand the problems inherent in selecting your tools.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
If you read the actual complaint, paragraphs 9 and 21.k, you'll see that part of it is that MacOSX isn't even doing the dithering as well as it should: the same laptop running Windows does a better job of displaying the colours.
I never heard of this LCD dithering before. A little bit of Googling found a simple explanation of what it is, a simple test to look for it, and a detailed explanation and test.
This seems to be a very common practice on LCD screens, not just a trick used by Apple. I'm still not clear whether most LCDs use spatial or temporal dithering. It seems like temporal dithering would work very well with an LCD. They're known for their sluggish response times, so sending "80-84-80-84" at 60 Hz should result in a nice smearing into "82-82-82-82" over time.
I didn't see any dithering artifacts on my MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo). Either it doesn't dither (unlikely) or the dithering is better than my eyes can see.
We all know that screens are actually made of red, green, and blue (RGB) dots that combine to make the apparent color of each pixel. An 8-bit screen would have 256 levels of brighness for each of those subpixels, yielding 256 x 256 x 256 = 16.8 million mixed colors. But if you wanted to be really technical you could say that the screen can actually show only 256 + 256 + 256 = 768 colors; the mixed colors are an illusion. Likewise a 6-bit screen can generate only 262 thousand colors in a given pixel at a given instant, but it can simulate many more colors over time or space.
The argument depends on how many pixels the manufacturer claims to have. If they say their screen is 1024 x 768 with 16.8 million colors then we would expect to have 786,000 independently addressable pixels, each of which comprises three RGB subpixels. If in fact it takes four RGB subpixels (1-1/3 of each 6-bit subpixel to get 8 bits) to yield 16.8 million colors then they should really only claim a resolution of 768 x 576. If, however, they do the dithering temporally and the pulsation is unnoticeable then I think continuing to call the resolution 1024 x 768 is fair.
AlpineR
Isn't that going to get laughed right out of the courtroom? I mean sure that level of pedanticism is tolerated in some forums, but this is a court of law. Surely the judge is going to say a dignified version of "What the fuck are you on? Get the fuck out of here."
/. article doesn't mention that dithering can actually cause headaches in some people (like myself).
The display can only show about a quarter million colors. This is not millions. Therefore, when Apple promised "millions", they were lying.
The reason dithering is bad is because many people (including myself) can see dithering quite easily and it looks, frankly, cheap and terrible.
By dithering the output on their displays, they have virtually assured graphics professionals cannot use their products for certain tasks without plugging in an external display. Again, they said they display 'millions' of colors, and therefore dithering shouldn't be present.
I was waiting for slashdot's take on this, obviously they've chosen to word the article in a very pro-Apple way. In other articles I've read, it points out that Apple makes no mention of dithering on their site, and suppresses the fact that their monitors are only 6bit, not 8bit. Also, the
Again, 8 bit monitors do exist, and it's a reasonable expectation that if the monitor is said to display 'millions' of colors, it must be 8bit. 6bit displays, such as Apples, cannot display millions of colors, and as such, they must be advertised as such.
I've heard from others that most retailers selling laptops with 6bit displays offer them as having 'millions of colors'. My preemptive response is that others doing it doesn't make it right.
My girlfriend recently bought a macbook. Luckily, she doesn't notice the dithering. However, as I said before, the thing gives me a headache after a while.
Latewire
No, that's not correct. The dynamic range of the human eye has not yet been determined, and at the moment is still considered pretty much to be an analog continuum rather with pretty much infinite sensitivity. 16,000 colours you say? I can tell you now that I most certainly can tell a 16bit colour image (about 65,000 colours) from a 32bit colour image. For reference, 16,000 colours is about 14 bits, so about 1/4 the colours of a 16bit image.
I can also guarantee you that I can tell the difference between a 16bit dithered image and a true 32bit image.
I think the only moot points here are the moot facts you have pulled out of your moot backside.
I hate printers.
I'm in the same boat. We constantly test LCDs at work to recommend to various customers which ones to go with for their next massive purchase. Several displays have been 'hot' for doing temporal dithering. Problem is... I see the noise patterns it produces, and it gives me a rather nasty headache. Statistically we are under-represented, but the customer will more than likely have a greater percentage of these younger, well-visioned individuals, so this becomes a problem.
... I'm of the personal opinion that temporal dithering messes with your heads. Several coworkers all have the same LCD panel. Each one notices they get headaches from the display, but none say anything about it to the others. At one point, another coworker gets the same LCD and gets diagnosed with Epilepsy 3 months afterwards, after getting increased headaches...
We also work with manufacturers to get new technologies based upon the HVS (Human Visual System) implemented. Supposedly there are new displays coming that address even some of the issues out there- but temporal dithering is here to stay until it's displaced by a more impulse-decay system.
And
I hate temporal dithering.
The point is, a pixel is NOT used in at least two different fields (camera sensors, and LCD displays) as the ultimate unit of color display, so they are going to have a hard time arging this silliness in court. If you really care about the difference between spatial dithering, temporial dithering, etc., you should have known this before you bought a tool to help you work with it.
Apparently you have not tried evaluating Viewsonic displays. Check these spec sheets out: one from their US site and one from their European site. Notice that the same displays which claim to support, according to the specs from the US site, "16.7 million colors" are shown to be 6-bit panels with FRC on the specs from the European site.
8-bit: 255 red, 255 green, 255 blue + black.
6-bit: 63 red, 63 green, 63 blue + black.
Where do people keep getting this same (bizarrely wrong) math? You get "black" in each of the three channels, so even in your incorrect interpretation of how pixels work, that's 256*3 and 64*3.
Oh, pray tell me how 0% red differs from 0% green, and how they differ from 0% blue - in the real world.
Black == Black == Black.
It's 255* 3 + Black, and 63*3 + Black. 766 different shades of colour and 190 different shades of colour.
Only a retard would go on about the difference in total blackness between different colour components. Maybe you could argue that backlight leakage through total black effectively means there are 768 colours, and NO black if you really really want to argue your case.
those gods were/are not thought to have more than one pair of hands; the depictions portray them as multi-limbed to convey their different aspects.
namaste.
It can be very difficult to tell if an LCD monitor has a 6 or 8 bit panel, and there are several variations of each. Often times 6 bit panels are labeled as "16.2" million colors, so that's one indication. Otherwise they often use some kind of fishy wording, like "16.7 million color support" which simply means that you can set your display settings to 16.7, even though you're not seeing 8 bit color. Another sign of a 6 bit panel is a super fast response time, like 2ms. Finally, the most important thing to look at is price. On the low side an 8 bit panel is going to start at around $250-300 (19 - 20.1"). A good LCD monitor for graphics work is still going to set a person back a fair amount.
I went through the nightmare of trying to find a low cost 8 bit panel recently. I'm very familiar with the Viewsonic documents you posted, and I remember being quite frustrated with their literature. I'm not sure that they're trying to pull a fast one though. I've never seen so much contradictory literature, from a variety of companies!
For instance, I ended up getting a pair of Samsung SyncMaster 204BW monitors. Check this out:
- According to the *manual* that came with the monitor, it is a 16.7 M Colors (8bit + RGB) a-si TFT active matrix panel. It specifically says "8bit + RGB" in the manual.
- According to most online stores currently selling it, it is a 6 bit panel supporting 16.2M colorand is thus a 6 bit panel. (this has actually changed since I bought it. the store I bought it from at the time listed it as 16.7, and has since changed the spec to 16.2)
- According to some guy in a forum who claims to have called Samsung about this monitor, it is 8 bit.
- According to Samsung online, it is an 6 bit panel.
- According to Samsung online in canada, it is an 8 bit panel.
I think it's very possible that manufacturers choose different components for their models over time, even critical components like the panel in an LCD monitor. Perhaps the 204BW monitors I'm running are 8 bit, and the ones for sale now are 6 bit. I honestly don't know for sure.
The good news is that even if these are 6 bit panels, I think that they look great. I use them for quite a bit of work in Photoshop and Illustrator. No complaints whatsoever. They outperform my old CRTs in terms of color accuracy and contrast, which surprised me (although viewing angle is important with an LCD...which can either be a hindrance or be used as an advantage).
As far as TFA goes, I on one hand don't think these guys have a chance. Cheap LCD panels are nothing new, and they've gotten so good that the average user is none the wiser about them being 6 bit. If the eye is fooled then the eye is fooled. Macintosh certainly didn't invent 6 bit panels, nor do I believe that they intentionally use them to dupe customers. The reason that LCDs have gotten so cheap is not because manufacturing high quality panels has become that much cheaper, it's because the new cheap LCDs use cheaper 6 bit panels! Plus it cracks me up that guys who spend $2500 for Macbooks actually think they're getting the highest quality hardware. (is there a notebook offered today with an 8 bit panel?)
On the other hand, it would be nice if this thing could lead to manufacturers being more consistent in their labeling.
On my MacBook Pro, both squares initially looked smooth.
But when I started dragging the window around, I noticed that there was clear banding on the left square, and very slight banding on the right square. The banding on the left square flickered while I was moving the window. The right square did not flicker.
Well, on blowing up the images, I see that the first one is dithered with a crude regular spatial dither. The second uses no dithering. I guess that means that my MacBook Pro display is doing some dithering though much less noticable than that on the left image. The flickering when I move the image is due to interference as the image's dithering and the screen's dithering going into and out of registration with each other.