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New 20" iMac Screens Show 98% Fewer Colors
Trintech points us to an AppleInsider article about another class-action lawsuit directed against Apple Inc. This one claims that the displays on new 20" iMacs are only capable of 6-bit-per-pixel color, 98% fewer colors than Apple advertises. Rather than the 8-bit, in-plane switching (IPS) screens used in 24" iMacs and earlier 20" models, "[t]he new 20-inch iMac features a 6-bit twisted nematic film (TN) LCD screen," according to the article, "which the [law] firm claims is the 'least expensive of its type,' sporting a narrower viewing angle than the display of the 24-inch model, less color depth, less color accuracy, and greater susceptibility to washout." Apple recently settled a very similar class-action suit about the displays on MacBook and MacBook Pro models.
Or the same as my phone's shitty screen.
Looking forward to watching those of distorted reality among us try to spin this one...
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
It's false advertising when the product doesn't do what the vendor says it does. This obviously doesn't apply for claims like "guaranteed happiness" or something like that, but if you advertise millions of colors you better make sure your product does indeed display millions of colors in a test lab.
Of course there may be little perceptile differences between "real" colors and dithered colors, so the "real" product may only be discerned from the "dithered" one by professionals in a lab - but that does not change the meaning of "real" and "true" the slightest. The fact that it's a good lie doesn't make it less a lie, to say it in a more dramatic way.
An MP3 or AAC soundfile may sound absolutely transparent and identical to the original uncompressed PCM stream, but it is not the same. Maybe it takes proverbial golden ears or a 15'000 USD stereo setup to notice, it is still missing information. A picture that was JPG or wavelet compressed is fundamentally different from a simple raster image, even if you had to zoom up to 500x to see the difference.
Let me emphasize that I'm not saying lossy output technologies are fraud, as all technical reproduction methods incur some losses to the original. But it is fraud to claim a higher output fidelity than is physically possible with a particular product. I absolutely disagree to the claim that a lie is acceptable if I can't prove it wrong with only the naked eye or ear. A lie is a lie, even if takes an electron microscope to reveal.
A reduction in cost and complexity can be quite useful, just look at how we lived with flickering TV sets for decades. But it is fraud when the buyer is not informed about it.