Apple sued over misrepessentation of panels

[nighthawkx]

Originally Posted by http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Sued+Over+Deceptive+Millions+of+Colors+Adver tising/article11348.htm

New suit goes to show be careful what you promise

Be careful your product lives up to what you advertise it to be and be careful it does what you say it will do; that's the lesson that many tech companies are learning the hard way. Microsoft recently found that out as its facing an uphill battle to fight against a class lawsuit alleging it intentionally deceived using "Vista Capable" stickers to sell chipsets.

Now Apple is mired in a similar mess, based on some of its a bit exaggerated claims. Apple's bold advertising claim that its MacBooks support "millions of colors." The only problem -- MacBook LCD are only 6-bit TFT models, only allowing for only 262,144 colors. A true 8-bit display would indeed support "millions of colors", 16,777,216 colors in fact. However, Apple opted to ditch the eight bit display in favor of a cheaper 6 bit one, despite the high cost of Macs.

Apple had already been sued once over the issue. A pair of MacBook owners, Fred Greaves and Dave Gately, filed a class action suit against Apple last May for the claim. Most lawyers at the time dismissed the case as frivolous. The case's own lawyers realized that they would not be able to obtain class action due to difficulty finding enough plaintiffs who bought the Macs singly on the "millions of colors" advertising, and thus pursued alternative legal action, adding to many observers cyncism on the seriousness of the suit. The suit became even more of a joke in the legal community when it buttressed its claims with discussion board threads from apple.com support and other online fora showing customers angry about the poor LCD quality.

The pair's representation cited numerous comments such as, "I’m so tired of dealing with Apple at this point, that I don’t have the energy or time to continue even though they’ve done everything they possibly could," one of the anonymous comments posted on Apple.com's customer support.

Despite being blown off as a frivolous suit, Greaves and Gately scored an unlikely victory against Apple. Apple settled with the pair out of court last month, bringing the case to a close. Part of Apple's settlement agreement was that the pair could not discuss the precise settlement terms with the press. Thus it is uncertain exactly how much Apple paid the pair for to drop the suit and for their silence.

Apple isn't the first manufacturer to make the 6-bit versus 8-bit claim. Then AnandTech editor and present DailyTech editor Kristopher Kubicki blasted Dell, Viewsonic, Samsung and other display manufacturers for similar practices in 2004. Most of these companies were also successfully sued for misleading consumers about the color depth of their monitors.

In 2004, AU Optoelectronics -- the largest manufacturer of 6-bit LCD panels at the time -- attempted to deflect the 6-bit claim by advertising its panels use interpolation techniques to create millions of colors. The argument then shifted to whether or not "millions of colors" means "millions of colors at the same time." However, interpolation techniques use more RGB cells to generate colors, and cannot really be compared to 8-bit panels.

However, the legal woes for Apple about "millions of colors" is hardly over. Hot on the heels of the settlement, Los Angeles legal firm powerhouse, Kabateck Brown Kellner, smelled blood and filed a class action against Apple for false advertising. The firm is well known for its pending class action suit against Network Solutions over domain name tasting and its click-fraud suit against Google, among many high profile legal actions.

Managing partner Brian Kabatech states, "Apple is duping its customers into thinking they’re buying 'new and improved' when in fact they’re getting stuck with 'new and inferior'."

Apple, no stranger to class action suits, refused to comment on the pending suit, but given their previous settlement and Kabateck Brown Kellner's shining class action track record, they surely are a bit worried. Kabateck Brown Kellner meanwhile insists that its not just out to loot Apple; rather it states its trying to bring the consumer justice after being harmed by Apple. The firm says it wants "to help those customers who were deceived and make sure Apple tells the truth in the future."

after the premium you pay you'd at least expect *IPS or *VA type panels and not this TN + film crap.

[GDwarf]

Well, TN is still pretty standard.

But yeah, dithering? Bad idea.

[nighthawkx]

I wouldn't mind dithering added onto 8bit panels. IMO 24bit colour palletes are SOOO 1995

FYI it's intermediate frame based dithering. As in one moment it's one shade of green and another it's a different shade. It's not perceptual dithering where adjacent pixels are dithered.

[GDwarf]

Well, there isn't much demand for more unless you're a professional.

[Shikaino]

Apple Misrepresentation? Nowai. It was a matter of time before they got sued for misrepresenting stuff.

[nighthawkx]

Originally Posted by Shikaino

Apple Misrepresentation? Nowai. It was a matter of time before they got sued for misrepresenting stuff.

like claiming that they make all of their own hardware even though it's outsourced predominantly to ASUS?
or claiming that they make all their hardware even though they use intel CPUs and chipsets which are only made by intel?
or claiming that they make all their hardware even though they use AMD and nVidia graphics chipsets which are only made by AMD/nvidia at their partnered foundries?
like claiming unrivaled security and being effectively virus proof despite having been found to be the least secure at the pwntoown competition and having the longest update cycle for security fixes?
like...

[GDwarf]

Longest update cycle for security fixes? I was pretty sure that Apple was pretty good about those.

[sea]

Originally Posted by nighthawkx

like claiming unrivaled security and being effectively virus proof despite having been found to be the least secure at the pwntoown competition and having the longest update cycle for security fixes?
like...

Actually, they apparently had months in advance to work on that; the guy cracked the MacBook Air in two minutes, but he also probably spent a while before the competition figuring out how.

Either way, Apple's misrepresentation of displays is nothing new. Pretty much every company that isn't catering to professionals does it.

[Aust68]

Originally Posted by nighthawkx

like claiming that they make all of their own hardware even though it's outsourced predominantly to ASUS?
or claiming that they make all their hardware even though they use intel CPUs and chipsets which are only made by intel?
or claiming that they make all their hardware even though they use AMD and nVidia graphics chipsets which are only made by AMD/nvidia at their partnered foundries?
like claiming unrivaled security and being effectively virus proof despite having been found to be the least secure at the pwntoown competition and having the longest update cycle for security fixes?
like...

You seem to love blasting Apple, I don't think anyone blasts any other company on this forum quite so much as you blast Apple. Point me to some sources that show Apple claiming they make their CPUs and GPUs and other hardware, because I know I've never seen any. I'm not sure if you've ever actually gone to the Apple site and looked at the specifications for any of their computers, but I can tell you they don't say Apple Core 2 Duo or Apple GeForce or Apple Radeon.

And for the point that the MacBook Air was hacked first over the other laptops, there are a number of reasons for this. It being a MacBook Air, it was most likely the most desirable computer to want to walk away with, therefore worked harder on to hack. And it was completed within two minutes, obviously the security hole was previously known about, and the code to execute a take over was already known, correct me if I'm wrong.

And for the screen misrepresentation, it says even other companies have done it in the article, so blast them too.

[Raccoon Mario]

Take that Apple!

[GDwarf]

Originally Posted by nighthawkx

like claiming that they make all of their own hardware even though it's outsourced predominantly to ASUS?

Where do they claim that>

or claiming that they make all their hardware even though they use intel CPUs and chipsets which are only made by intel?

Which is why they proudly advertise their Core 2 Duo CPUs.

or claiming that they make all their hardware even though they use AMD and nVidia graphics chipsets which are only made by AMD/nvidia at their partnered foundries?

...They list them as ATi/nVidia cards on the hardware spec sheets.

[nighthawkx]

Originally Posted by GDwarf

Where do they claim that>

a commercial on TV I saw while at work.

Apple - Get a Mac - Watch The TV Ads

watch "break through"

I'll admit though, There are two companies I outright hate, and I'll not deny that. They are Apple and M$. They are the monopolists of the desktop industry. Everyone gives M$ bad wrap, but I observe business practices pricing advertisements and the like and I see more misrepresentations apple side than I do M$ side. It's not M$'s fault that they're better at business, they competed with lower pricing and it sold. ANd to be blunt M$ hasn't done anything too bad. The evil empire has become less evil over the years.

Originally Posted by sea

Actually, they apparently had months in advance to work on that; the guy cracked the MacBook Air in two minutes, but he also probably spent a while before the competition figuring out how.

Either way, Apple's misrepresentation of displays is nothing new. Pretty much every company that isn't catering to professionals does it.

either way someone needs to get sued the 16 million color representation is a lie. I hate dell and their damned panel lotteries where the high end models vary between IPS and MVA and when Apple swapped from a good sIPS screen to a craptastic TN well.. that's just on another whole level. I can live with MVA or PVA they're sufficiently close and they are a little more responsive, but TN... I'm writing this on a TN right now(got it as a gift) and it's making me cringe for my old CRT. One of these days I'm going to hit up all the local thrift shops to see if I can find a good solid CRT. I like the IQ, viewing angles and responsiveness, don't care about electrical consumption and my desk is large enough that spacing isn't a concern.