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Class Action Lawsuit over Apple MB and MBP Displays?

Hello. I was one of the very first people who was complaining about this issue when I bought my MacBook Pro back in September. I remember posting about it before anyone else even started making a big deal about it. I was so annoyed at the "Sparkly" display that I finally returned my MacBook Pro and get my money back. I then bought a Mac Pro with a 20" ACD (so Apple still wins... hehe) Anyways, I'm really happy that I bought a Mac Pro now. I'm glad I didn't decide to keep that annoying MacBook Pro. Everything that was white or light colored just sparkled and glittered like crazy... it made reading web pages distracting and editing grain out of photos almost as annoying.

i needed logic said:
4 Did you hear about random shutdown? I did for 6 months. Software patch made it go away for a bit, but the other day it was back.
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I don't know much about the Random Shutdown thing but, if your computer is sleeping and runs out of battery life, it will automatically turn completely off. I just thought I'd throw that out there... my old PowerBook even does that.
 
i needed logic said:
If you do not own any of the products being discussed, why are you posting? Do everyone a favour and don't post your BS comments. The macbook (more specifically my macbook) is garbage. I will now tell you why it is garbage.

1 The screen is unviewable from any angle. Even viewing perpendicular to the face of the screen it is so bad that i cannot view the entire screen without losing view at the top or bottom. Ridiculous. I also experience the same uneven backlighting as mentioned by others.

2 Dead pixels. Never happened to me before.

3 Terrible customer support. I can't call support after 3 months? wtf is that? Once i did get on the phone with them it was like pulling teeth. Scammers. I bet most ppl just back off and let apple get away with it. I think thats their plan by making the process so difficult.

4 Did you hear about random shutdown? I did for 6 months. Software patch made it go away for a bit, but the other day it was back.

5 Thing gets dirty and disgusting just by looking at it. Robert Ives sucks

6 stripped screw in the memory compartment cap.

To tell you the truth i hardly use the thing, which makes things more disturbing. I hope the lawsuit goes well. All i want is a refund.
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The uneven lighting has been around for a while. I think the idea of putting a translucent apple logo on the back of the laptop screen lets light leak through
so if you use it against strong background light such as outside or against a strongly lit room you get quite a bit of light leaking through especially with darker content being displayed.

The PB15 i've used for a while has this, and the seeping through of backlight especially at the bottom edge. The PB12 i've used also has these problems. BUT, no dither problems on the PB. I briefly used a Macbook for a while, and definitely do not think that screen is up to par with the older screens. I can't understand the people who like glossy screens either. A huge selling point of LCD's in the very beginning was that they REDUCED the amount of glare by reflecting light isotropically, a glossy screen would mitigate that effect and has glare similar to an untreated CRT screen. Which is much worse than an actual production CRT since just about all later generation CRT's had glare reduction coatings or similar.

If I had a chance to test out a MacBook Pro that would give me an informed opinion of just how the screen compares to the others, especially what's out from IBM in the from of S-IPS screens, which are absolutely gorgeous to work with for serious graphics and rendition work.
 
I feel for all the people with the sub par displays. My display flickers but, luckily, seems to fine in quality. My only issue here is that the lawsuit is for false advertising, not poor quality displays. Apple never said that the display was 8-bit, or displayed 16.7 million colors. There was no false advertising. The lawsuit needs to be, and probably will be thrown out. If anyone is unhappy about their purchase, maybe you should try a different manufacturer. That is the simple, unfortunate truth. Just because someone makes a bad product does not mean you can sue them. If that were true, then Microsoft would have already been out of business :)
 
daa709 said:
I could have dropped the same cash on a sony and got much better quality to put it bluntly.

Dont get me wrong,
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Ah but you are wrong. Pick up a copy of Consumer Reports. Apple consistently is way way above any other laptop manufacturer on number of repars. They are undeniably the most reliable laptop computer. The biggest problem they've had recently was Sony batteries that caught fire. I'll bet Sony used those in their laptops.
 
Woh, didn't realize posting that link would lead to this long discussion.

As mentioned in another thread, I brought my mbp in to the genius bar for uneven brightness and another problem. The genius had to do a double take cause he sees the uneven brightness but had to bring it into the back for a second opinion before he comes back telling me "unless you have a red line or something, your display is what we considered normal. The uneven brightness is normal".

I am not sure if this is acceptable or good business practice or just shear way to just get people out of the apple store as soon as possible and shorten the load on repairs, but as a customer I am not happy that my old powerbook had a better even lit screen with no problems but my mbp had problems that is less then half a year old.

Not to mention the dithering problem.
 
J Radical said:
They don't have a case.

We all want the best displays possible, and the vast majority of people are already satisfied. Nothing Apple has said is untrue; the displays literally display millions of colours, quality, or lack thereof is a matter of perception.

They can hardly be expected to say: "our displays are grainy and the anti-glare coating reduces quality further".

Apple should be praised for being at the leading edge of display technology, and pushing harder than anyone else for improvement. If people are that upset by the displays they can buy something else- it's about the only benefit of capitalism!
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I don't care if they have a case or not.

The PR and "loss of face" is all that matters.
 
bretm said:
Ah but you are wrong. Pick up a copy of Consumer Reports. Apple consistently is way way above any other laptop manufacturer on number of repars. They are undeniably the most reliable laptop computer. The biggest problem they've had recently was Sony batteries that caught fire. I'll bet Sony used those in their laptops.
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...or Apple refuses to make repairs in the first place. :rolleyes:

You can't rely of numbers alone.
 
Maxx Power said:
The uneven lighting has been around for a while. I think the idea of putting a translucent apple logo on the back of the laptop screen lets light leak through
so if you use it against strong background light such as outside or against a strongly lit room you get quite a bit of light leaking through especially with darker content being displayed.

The PB15 i've used for a while has this, and the seeping through of backlight especially at the bottom edge. The PB12 i've used also has these problems. BUT, no dither problems on the PB. I briefly used a Macbook for a while, and definitely do not think that screen is up to par with the older screens. I can't understand the people who like glossy screens either. A huge selling point of LCD's in the very beginning was that they REDUCED the amount of glare by reflecting light isotropically, a glossy screen would mitigate that effect and has glare similar to an untreated CRT screen. Which is much worse than an actual production CRT since just about all later generation CRT's had glare reduction coatings or similar.

If I had a chance to test out a MacBook Pro that would give me an informed opinion of just how the screen compares to the others, especially what's out from IBM in the from of S-IPS screens, which are absolutely gorgeous to work with for serious graphics and rendition work.
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I am not talking about glare. I am speaking of the viewing angle being extremely poor. So poor that i cannot view the entire screen from one position. The backlighting issue is at the bottom of the screen, see the flickr video posted on the last page. It is very drastic and not, by any means normal.
 
gnasher729 said:
I hope you realise that any pixel that you see on any LCD screen is actually the result of dithering of one pure red, one pure green and one pure blue pixel.
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That's not how the word "dither" is used in the graphics industry. "What Apple is doing, if they are using the cheaper 6-bit displays, I don't know if they are. if combining pixels, trading off both resolution and noise for color depth.

I remember studying this way back in the early 1980's in a computer graphic class I took. I still remember many of the dither algorithms and the trade offs involved in choosing one.
Back then, memory was so expensive that 4-bit DACs were common in graphic displays. Dithering was even more importent. Apple's not doing anything new here.

For those who don't know, technically how dithering works Wikipedia has a good writeup:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dithering
I like the way it starts "Dither is an intentionally applied form of noise, used to randomize quantization error" It's that "noise" that user's call "grain".
 
Abstract said:
And whatever happened to getting a refund? Don't like the product? Return it and get something else. But no, lets keep the product and see how much we can get in compensation.
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This is where I have to stop you. Apple is very ...shoddy... about their return policy. Open box lose X%, after 10 days, forget it.

You're telling me that you can point out every flaw on your system in 10 days?

Perhaps if the refund policy wasn't so cruddy, this lawsuit would not be happening?

Gogf said:
I've been treated rather badly by an Apple "genius" before, too.
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Same. Sometimes they're dicks, so you have to be dicks back. "The MBP does not have a recall for screechy processors."

THE HELL IT DOESN'T.
 
mshimer5 said:
Apple never said that the display was 8-bit, or displayed 16.7 million colors. There was no false advertising.
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Apple said it displays "millions" of colors. Seeing as there is an "s" on the end of "millions" that means at least two million colors. that would require 21 bits. 21 is three times 7. Apparently Apple is using an 18 bit display (18 = 3x6) which can show at best 1/4 million colors.

You are correct they never implied 16.7 million colors or 8-bits but they clearly implied at least 7 bits and 2 million colors,
 
ChrisA said:
Apple said it displays "millions" of colors. Seeing as there is an "s" on the end of "millions" that means at least two million colors. that would require 21 bits. 21 is three times 7. Apparently Apple is using an 18 bit display (18 = 3x6) which can show at best 1/4 million colors.

You are correct they never implied 16.7 million colors or 8-bits but they clearly implied at least 7 bits and 2 million colors,
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You are right they said the display supports "millions" of colors, however, this is still pretty difficult to say that this is false advertising. You are saying they implied something. They never said it was 8-bit or even 6-bit. The average customer would have no idea that they weren't looking at "millions" of colors. If we really want to be technical, as some have already pointed out, there is no display that represents "millions" of colors, rather three colors. These three colors are so close together that they seem to make a certain color. But physically speaking, they are still only three colors.

Many computer companies have made similar claims as Apple. Not to say the whole argument of "if they did it, so can we" is valid, but what it does mean that the statement that Apple is making has been validated by the industry. The idea of a ditthered 6-bit display that "seems" to display millions of colors may very well be a valid representation of what Apple is selling, and that is in no way conflicted with what they advertised.

I admit, if what everyone is saying about the displays being sub par is true, then Apple screwed up, and they should address the issue. However, that does not mean you can sue them over it. I said it before, and I will say it again, you can not sue someone for making a crappy product.
 
g7by08believeit said:
I find this thread hilarious.
Is anyone else laughing at this?
People will complain about anything and everything these days.
For God's sake, stop your damned whining!
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So do I :p

This totally reminds me of when McDonalds got sued for making people fat... :confused:

Not that I am saying McDonalds doesn't make you fat... but those people had the choice to eat the food or not.

this is just dam pitiful
 
SpaceJello said:
I am not sure if this is acceptable or good business practice or just shear way to just get people out of the apple store as soon as possible and shorten the load on repairs, but as a customer I am not happy that my old powerbook had a better even lit screen with no problems but my mbp had problems that is less then half a year old.

Not to mention the dithering problem.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what nation you're from, but in America you can simply raise your voice so the whole store can hear you.

If you use buzzwords like "Macbook Pro", "Broken", "Horrible Screen", "Shoddy Customer Service", "Under Warranty" and the head-turning "You Won't Fix It!?"

Next thing you know, they are either negotiating with you or calling security. If they're calling security, a couple pretty anti-trust signs outside the mall will help.

And usually local news loves digging into Apple's "perfection".
 
Geniuses, telling users they are "too picky about... the quality of the display."

^^ That's exactly what happened to me. Totally ruined my experience with Apple, alongside having to replace my MacBook 3 times due to faulty screens.
 
I have no idea about you guys, but the screen on my glossy 15" 2.33GHz c2d MBP is frigging gorgeous...
 
Shanesan said:
I'm not sure what nation you're from, but in America you can simply raise your voice so the whole store can hear you.

If you use buzzwords like "Macbook Pro", "Broken", "Horrible Screen", "Shoddy Customer Service", "Under Warranty" and the head-turning "You Won't Fix It!?"

Next thing you know, they are either negotiating with you or calling security. If they're calling security, a couple pretty anti-trust signs outside the mall will help.

And usually local news loves digging into Apple's "perfection".
Click to expand...

:) That is so funny
Even if America has given this gift to its citizens for so long from what i can see not many realise it.
But, on to the subject: as an owner of a two Intel imacs I can tell you now that both screens are buggy, and are likely to be returned in the summer 'for more investigations'. ;)
As far as i know Apple is considered by many to sell A grade (hope i got terminology right) displays, and i don't know if this applies to imac/MBP displays as well but it should. I have an old LG display (20") which in terms of backlight uniformity is perfect. How come iMac look like the Aurora Borealis ?
I am so glad about this, because it's crazyness like this that make big companies realize they should alter for the better their standards and deliver superior products.
 
"See blacker blacks and whiter whites" - I think this difference is supposed to be between the older iBook and the MacBook, not the MacBook and competitors' laptops...the MacBooks screen is way better than iBook screens, so its not false advertising at all boooo :mad:
 
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