Class Action Lawsuit over Apple MB and MBP Displays?

[slayr-cxf50]

Apple's awe-inspiring techniques of product design and their.. uniqueness aka RDF.. are a marketing system. Not really much more than that.
I think Apple should make better quality stuff too. By buying this low quality stuff we are just encouraging them to make it worse.
And that is what I meant by my last post.

 

[iW00t]

Pfft, you don't like the quality of the screen? Don't buy a computer. Nobody is forcing you to.
Case solved.

Don't like to get sued? Don't promise more than you are delivering! Nobody is forcing you to. Case solved.

That doesn't make it right. I've been holding out on a new laptop for a while. The first MBPs were the worst- viewing from a side angle completely skewed the color. Window frames looked gold from a side angle, rather than silver.

This is the most sane post in the whole thread. From the Powerbook to the Macbook Pro we lost some vertical resolution, get narrower viewing angles, lost a bunch of horizontal lines but in place of that got a ton of grain instead. Over all it is a step backwards.

 

[FX120]

I feel that Apple has been slipping too far with the whole form over function mentality that their hardware seems to be suffering from these days.

The last notebook that Apple made that was for the most part perfect was the G3 Firewire Powerbook. Ever since then their notebooks especially seem to have declined in both useability and build/ component quality.

I almost wish Apple would just sell OS X for any OEM system.

Edit: Form over function... Form over function...

 

[boobooq88]

quit your trolling

Don't tell me what to do.

Don't like what I have to say... Don't read it. Anyways.. an example of trolling would be me coming in here and saying "See! APPLE SUCKS!" that would be trolling.

I was merely expressing my opinion on the matter at hand.

 

[iW00t]

I feel that Apple has been slipping too far with the whole function over form mentality that their hardware seems to be suffering from these days.

The last notebook that Apple made that was for the most part perfect was the G3 Firewire Powerbook. Ever since then their notebooks especially seem to have declined in both useability and build/ component quality.

I almost wish Apple would just sell OS X for any OEM system.

That is precisely why it wouldn't happen. Why give up on the only thing they can use to suck us into buying shoddy products?

 

[slayr-cxf50]

function over form

Other way...

OSX for any PC system.. that would be very interesting.

Don't like to get sued? Don't promise more than you are delivering! Nobody is forcing you to. Case solved.

Except the law. And a lot of angry customers.

 

[bilbo--baggins]

I'm disappointed to read that Apple is making false claims over specifications.

It's funny, it works the other way around too. When I ordered a MacBook last month it still said it only had 802.11b and g, even though I know it actually has also a and n. That makes me suspicious too - because I bet if there are problems in future they'll say they didn't advertise it as having that functionality.

 

[matticus008]

That doesn't make it right. I've been holding out on a new laptop for a while. The first MBPs were the worst- viewing from a side angle completely skewed the color. Window frames looked gold from a side angle, rather than silver.

The point you and many others seem to be missing is that "millions of colors" is a direct translation from the Windows "16.7 million" color option (which is often erroneously labeled itself as "32 bit color" when it is in fact just 24 bits--display buffers don't recognize the alpha channel). Displays selecting that option (and using those terms to market them) are quite common, and few of them actually can display 16 million colors in notebooks. This is not a limitation of the video card, so the "millions of colors" option is still accurate.

It may have been a false advertising suit 10 years ago, but the practice is now established and engrained, and holding Apple liable for that practice will not occur unless Apple's attorneys are woefully inadequate.

Don't like to get sued? Don't promise more than you are delivering! Nobody is forcing you to. Case solved.

It's not that simple. The advertising for displays took up "16 million" colors years ago as a simple marketing move. Everyone else simply followed suit to adapt, in a simple effort to avoid lost sales. They're not over- or under-delivering based on any real metric in the industry. This is something you come to see every day in commercial/business law.

Aquarium filters state their flow rates at 0" depth and without media installed--not a real world number. AV receivers report wattage in some fictional environment not grounded in the actual performance of their DSPs. CPUs regularly overstate their running frequencies by millions of cycles per second. Memory bandwidth is a best-case scenario. All of these have led to lawsuits, but it is exceedingly rare for anyone to suffer in any way but publicity. After all, if your best time for the 100-yard dash is 7.7 seconds and you tell people you can run it in 7.7 seconds, you're not lying, but you're not giving real-world performance for when you're chasing a train in dress shoes with a briefcase and a Starbucks. Specs have always had this problem.

Further, the filing's only real evidentiary support is that you can choose the "millions of colors" options in Display preferences--but what the OS puts out has zero bearing on what the monitor displays.

 

[k2k koos]

Customer info

I think Apple, and other companies, should include a seperate webpage describing in simple terms, the way some of their technologies work.
In this case: A simple description on how a LCD screen works, and how color is generated on it, including a 'translation' into their 'millions of colors'.
That way, everybody is able to look up what their statements and tech specs realy mean (it used to happen a lot in the past with audio equipement brochures for example, probably still does).

It would avoid silly lawsuits like this, (it baffles me that people would even consider going to court over something like this, I can't help but get this feeling that the only 'real' reason is money, unfortunately...) and everyone would be better informed.

 

[alveryx]

Liars!

That's interesting.

 

[Bern]

Gosh I wonder if Engadget's resources for this are as reliable as the source they got the email about delayed Leopard and iPhone from?

 

[irobot2003]

The point you and many others seem to be missing is that "millions of colors" is a direct translation from the Windows "16.7 million" color option (which is often erroneously labeled itself as "32 bit color" when it is in fact just 24 bits--display buffers don't recognize the alpha channel). Displays selecting that option (and using those terms to market them) are quite common, and few of them actually can display 16 million colors in notebooks. This is not a limitation of the video card, so the "millions of colors" option is still accurate.

It may have been a false advertising suit 10 years ago, but the practice is now established and engrained, and holding Apple liable for that practice will not occur unless Apple's attorneys are woefully inadequate.

It's not that simple. The advertising for displays took up "16 million" colors years ago as a simple marketing move. Everyone else simply followed suit to adapt, in a simple effort to avoid lost sales. They're not over- or under-delivering based on any real metric in the industry. This is something you come to see every day in commercial/business law.
[...]

The 16.7 million color terminology came from CRT days when typically the limitation was the graphics card not the display... it wasn't simply a result of a Windows color option, and it was to the point. CRTs were common up until about 4-5 years ago... and I think until recently most LCDs were actually 8bit. So implying the terminology has simply been a marketing ploy for 10 years seems a bit of a stretch.

As someone else pointed out, dithering sacrifices spatial resolution, so advertising native screen resolution together with dithered color reproduction is inconsistent and obviously misleading. However, if Apple did not say MacBooks *display* millions of colors *at* the native screen resolution then they are probably safe. I actually had no idea that companies had started using 6bit LCDs. Maybe I'll hold on to my PowerBook a little longer...

There is a similar issue with plasma displays -- they typically do not refresh at higher than 60Hz... yet a quick read of specs would lead you to believe that they can refresh at much higher rates. What is happening is that the displays can handle inputs at high update rates, even though output refresh rates are limited. If one reads the specs carefully one sees that they only talk about the inputs supported, not the output side.

Some informative links:

http://compreviews.about.com/od/multimedia/a/LCDColor.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TFT_LCD#IPS

 

[hollerz]

The colors thing doesn't bother me, what does is the amount of grain and the pathetic viewing angles. If i'm not pretty much directly straight on to the screen, the top/bottom goes dark.

 

[gnasher729]

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,

You are assuming that they claimed that any single pixel on its own can be in any of millions of colors. They never made that claim. They claimed that the screen on a MacBook, as a whole, can display millions of different colors, and you can do that easily through the method of dithering.

When a high quality magazine is printed, they don't use millions of colors, they use either four or six actual inks, and by applying varying amounts of these inks on the paper, they create the illusion of an infinite amount of colors.

Within an LCD screen, for every pixel that you see advertised, there are actually three separate pixels in the hardware, one green, one red, one blue. A MacBook that is sold as having 1280 x 800 pixels actually has 3840 x 800 separate display items, each being capable of displaying one color only in various shades of brightness. Your eye combines these colors into a single color, because they are close enough together. In the same way, the eye will combine adjacent pixels. For a picture of how LCD screens work, look at

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/03/20/how_crt_and_lcd_monitors_work/3

Anyway, did you know that all video is always reduced to 12 bit per pixel (8 bit for brightness, 2 x 8 bit for color information used for 2x2 pixels) before it is compressed?

 

[MarcelV]

It must be me, but when I buy a product, I look a the product and see if I really like it. If I like it, I buy it. If I don't like the product, I don't buy it. So, the individuals should not have bought the product. But the product was good enough when they purchased it. Now, after the fact, they sue. Doesn't make any sense to me. And no one in this thread has proven Apple misinformed the consumer.

For anyone that says, the display manufacturer should be sued, not Apple, don't get it either. Say, you buy a car, and the steering wheel breaks, it's the manufacturer that is responsible, not the manufacturer that build the steering wheel. Buy purchasing a product from Apple, there was a contract between Apple and you. That's why there is waranty and there are waranty limitations.

 

[gnasher729]

As far as the customer is concerned, class-action lawsuits are not about making money. At most, each affected customer will receive compensation for their purchase, and Apple will (hopefully) learn their lesson.

Now call me cynical, but could you point out any class-action lawsuit where customers got more money out of it than the lawyers? There have even been cases where people ended up as lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit that they didn't want to join, and _were sued_ by the lawyers when they refused to participate in the case!

 

[gnasher729]

I notice a little dithering on my MacBook display, but it's only noticeable when I view it from outside the regular viewing angle. It's even not remotely close to being annoying enough to make it worth complaining about.

Whatever you are seeing is most likely not what is meant.

It seems that every single pixel is only capable of displaying red, green and blue in 64 different levels of brightness. If you want to display lets say an amount of red that is right between two of these levels, then a single pixel can't do that. What you can do is this: You make the pixel to the left a tiny bit brighter, and the pixel to the right a tiny bit darker. If you don't look at it with a magnifying glass, you will not see a difference.

To make the effect of dithering more visible: Change the "Display" settings in "System Preferences" to "Thousands of colors", look at the screen, then change it to "256 colors". With "Thousands of colors" you get 32 levels of brightness for red, green and blue; with "256 colors" you get only six different levels. In 256 colors the dithering is clearly visible, and you get an idea what this is all about. With "Thousands of colors", many people wouldn't notice anything; you'll have to look very close to see any dithering. With 6 bit you get results that are about three times better than what you see at thousands of colors. (Why three times better? 6 bit is twice as good as thousands of colors on a perfect monitor. But you look at thousands of colors on a 6 bit monitor, so you get all the imperfections of thousands of colors, plus the imperfections of the 6 bit LCD).

 

[Leoff]

Man I was pissed with apple before, now this just proves my case.

I've had about 5 different apple laptops, and the most recent a macbook. With me dropping just over a grand in £ on this thing, within the first week it turns yellow, starts to moo, overheats, the battery dies and within the second the screen is flickering and the colours look ***** compared to my 3 year old dell latitude. If i spend the same on ANY other luxury item, it would be replaced in a heartbeat under warranty, but apple, especially those pretentious 'geniuses', don't want to hear about my mac.

I could have dropped the same cash on a sony and got much better quality to put it bluntly.

Dont get me wrong, i love the apps, and they are so so good for the video and picture editing (said this, the pc can do just the same), but apple spend too much time dossing about with the design and all this media hype about the iphone than focusing on the quality of the macs themselves. I wanted to be able to use my 1 grand laptop during term time, but instead it was in for repair for pretty much the whole duration of the first term. If apple dont get their act together by the end of this year, i certainly will be buying a sony next year.

Its about time someone stepped up to this *****.

I'm wlling to bet that you got your MacBook the moment it came out, right? Well, as with any other manufactured item on the planet (cars, toasters, computers), first releases are usually glitchy, and sadly, you got one.

I find it hard to believe, near impossible in fact, that you've had all those problems and Apple refused to fix or replace it. Are you sure you're not embellishing just a bit?

 

[JFreak]

The last notebook that Apple made that was for the most part perfect was the G3 Firewire Powerbook. Ever since then their notebooks especially seem to have declined in both useability and build/ component quality.

What's wrong with the 1.25GHz 15" Aluminum PowerBook? IMO, that's the latest "perfect" laptop.

 

[JFreak]

With "Thousands of colors", many people wouldn't notice anything; you'll have to look very close to see any dithering.

Very close meaning 50cm or so. Yes, it might be "acceptable" if the image has lots of colours in the first place, but if there are subtle colour diferences between closely matched colours (such as shades of gray), then there will be a noticeable problem.

6 bit is twice as good as thousands of colors on a perfect monitor. But you look at thousands of colors on a 6 bit monitor, so you get all the imperfections of thousands of colors, plus the imperfections of the 6 bit LCD.

That is not true. If you have an 8bit (or 16bit) LCD panel, then IN THEORY you have a POSSIBILITY to represent more colours with that panel. A panel represents everything and anything it is being fed to, and it does not do anything else.

But if the GPU has been set to 64k colour space or 16M colour space, that setting restricts the graphics system and therefore reflects to the colours it is going to ask the LCD panel to reproduce. Let's take a simple analogy and say the LCD panel can accurately reproduce every number from zero to million. And then let's say the GPU only knows numbers 0, 1, 10, 100, 1k, 10k, 100k and 1M –– iow, 8 numbers. What happens? The "system" can reproduce numbers from zero to million, but not all numbers can be used. What's the problem? Would the situation be any better if the LCD knew numbers from zero to two million? No. The inaccuracy comes from the MORE INACCURATE part of the system, which would be the GPU in this example. The panel itself can represent those 8 numbers just as perfectly regardless of the GPU –– and if only those 8 numbers were used, the situation would not change if the GPU also knew all numbers from zero to million.

Inaccuracy comes from the least accurate part of the system. If the GPU is restricted to 5 bits, then the 6bit LCD panel does not *add* inaccuracy. But if the GPU is working at 16bit, then even the 8bit LCD cannot keep up with the resolution and whatever you see is restricted to the 8 bit accuracy of the panel.

It's simple, if one thinks about the principle.

 

[JFreak]

"millions of colors" is a direct translation from the Windows "16.7 million" color option (which is often erroneously labeled itself as "32 bit color" when it is in fact just 24 bits--display buffers don't recognize the alpha channel).

It's not about the alpha channel, but instead differences of screen (RGB) and print (CMYK) colour systems. Screen colours are made of three additive components (3*8bit=24bit) whereas print colours are made of four subtractive components (4*8bit=32bit).

 

[JFreak]

This is all the iPhone's fault.

Where's my 50" touch-screen 160dpi Cinema Display? I want it yesterday!!!! Oh, and it better cost less than 200USD

Yep, you might be right about this one. People are so tempted to nice new things that most lose the sense of reality. Until laptops see high-res screens, they *will* look less sharp and less saturated than the iPhone. That's for sure, even if the MBP's got the LED backlights very soon...

 

[riotshield]

After reading this page again: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/graphics.html, I can see how Apple can get nailed, legally, for this statement:

"See blacker blacks, whiter whites, and many more colors in between on a brilliant 15.4-inch, 1440-by-900-pixel or 17-inch, 1680-by-1050-pixel digital display. Enjoy a nuanced view simply unavailable on other portables."

The dispute over "support for millions of colors" is debateable, in my opinion, because it's common industry practice (although misleading) to use 16.2M colors to describe 6-bit displays with dithering/interpolation. However, when Apple says the MBP's view is "simply unavailable on other portables," that suggests that its displays are different from other laptop displays, the vast majority of which are 6-bit. Certainly, for paying $2000-2800 for a "Pro" notebook, it would be reasonable to expect that you would get a display suitable for professional graphics/photo work.

Apple doesn't make the same claim for the Macbook though, so I don't think the claim for the Macbook holds as much water.

 

[G4scott]

Anybody remember the whole "Horizontal line issue" on the last round of 15" PowerBook G4's? I do, because I went through 3 PowerBooks and weeks without my laptop just to get it repaired.

I was even told off by a 'rogue mac genius', when I attempted to point out the problem on a PowerBook on the floor, and how no other LCD in the store had the problem, and he tried to brush it off as normal. His excuse was "it's an optical illusion, and all LCDs have them. If you want pro graphics, get a CRT." I was ready to ask him to point me to the CRTs in the store at the time just to let him know how stupid the statement he just made was. He claimed to be a graphics designer and that there wasn't anything at all wrong with the screen. Using a certain picture that really made the problem stand out, I got several other employees in the store to agree, but not this 'stupid' genius.

Even now, after having the screen replaced, I still see diagonal wavy lines in some colors. There is obviously something still wrong with the display, but in my opinion, it's not enough to warrant the effort to try to get Apple to fix it.

Even if these people who are suing have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to LCD displays, they are on the mark when it comes to Apple's response to "quality control issues." Apple is at most vague, and tries to explain to their customers that the problem they see is a normal thing. I can almost guarantee you that this is what they train their geniuses to tell customers.

I can understand Apple's stance on this partly, because if they accepted to repair every tiny thing that people complained about on their computers, Apple would have a crap load of 'repairs' to deal with. Unfortunately, when something like the screen problem on the PowerBook G4's came up, which people all over the country could obviously see, Apple's way of dealing with things just pissed people off.

If there is a defect with the screens, Apple needs to recognize it and do something about it. While suing them may seem outrageous, if you've ever had Apple try to fix a defect that affected an entire product line, you'll know how stubborn they are, and how many months it takes them to do anything.

 

[manu chao]

After reading this page again: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/graphics.html
"Enjoy a nuanced view simply unavailable on other portables."

Can one, legally, make such a claim without having to be able to proof this statement? In an ideal world, they would have to able to show that there is a technical difference that allows them to claim it. In practice, they just say we are better than the others, something almost every marketing department does.