Apple screen claims off colour
Millions claim settled
TWO PRO PHOTOGRAPHERS have received an undisclosed sum out of court in a ten-month battle over the Cupertino Cabal's claims that their Macbook and Macbook Pro lappies could display "millions of colours".
The suit suggested that people were tricked into buying the kit on a false claim and that the machines were only capable of giving the illusion of millions of colours through software dithering.
The snappers maintained that they had purchased a device that they thought was capable of accurately representing colours, essential to their work, and that the reality was far short of the mark.
The nature of the settlement means that Apple could well be open to further claims unless it changes its marketing hyperbole and states the true capabilities of its displays, whatever they may be.
The fact that most displays only actually display three colours, albeit at various levels of luminescence, seems to have been ignored somewhere. µ
L'Inq
Comments
Oh there's more
They also say that their Macs are stable, fast, secure and fun. Is there someone suing for those things too?And let's not forget Microsoft, who says that Vista has innovations.
Polishing a turd
I find it hard to believe any "professional" photographer would trust in a laptop screen for photo work, but I think Apple was just caught trying to polish a turd. Many LCDs cannot display the full 24-bit color range (8-bits-per-channel) because of the (often cheaper) technology used in them. However, Apple, rather than simply letting the LCD display the 16 million colors to its hardware-limited abilities, chose to implement dithering to improve the apparent visual quality of the display. It might also save battery life as well, since they only need to use 16-bit colors. This is much like web browsers would do on color-limited screens of the olden days. Only someone with a very discerning eye--like a photographer--would actually notice this.Apple should take down the claim, or simply show its users the limitations of its hardware.
6 vs. 8 bit.
Isn't this an argument about 6 vs 8 bit panels? When Apple said "Millions of colors" it implied 8-bit panels, yet they were actually only 6-bit?2^18 (6*3) = 262144
2^24 (8*3) = 16.7 million.
Quite a big difference, and the two men were photographers--I think that gives a little credence to the fact that they expected the colors that were advertised.
I think the claim has a little more merit than you're suggesting.
Not so...
If the photographer was keen enough to realize what he had received in the first place, he should have known that "millions of colors" means nothing in the LCD world. EVERY TN (6-bit) panel listed on Newegg is advertised as 16million (even sometimes 16.7 million). DELL delineates between 6/8bit by advertising either "analog" or "digital", digital being 8 bit. In short, professionals: DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!And doesn't Adobe have Photoshop developed to run on non-mac brand PC's?? There are very, very few laptops these days with 8 bit panels, so actually having a wider choice helps.