Tag Archives // "Millions of Colors"

31/03/2008

Apple News

20 Inch iMac Dithering Technology Built into the DisplayI’m sure you all remember the ‘millions of colors’ lawsuit that was settled out of court not so long ago. The suit claimed that MacBook and MacBook Pros were ‘fooling’ Apple users into thinking the displays output millions of colors… When in reality a dithering technology was being used to simulate the promoted color depth. The suit never took off due to the plaintiffs having a tough time finding support for their views… And now it looks like we have another ‘copy cat’ case.

This latest lawsuit was filed in San Jose and is arguing basically the same thing, except this time it’s all about the 20-inch iMac. The issue remains that Apple claims the 20-inch iMac can display ‘millions of colors at all resolutions’ when in reality the plaintiffs are arguing that the dithering technology ‘tricks’ us into believing we have that color-depth.

The 24-inch model of the iMac has an 8-bit display and does indeed display millions of colors. Over 16 million in fact. However the 20-inch model is a 6-bit display and will only display slightly over 260,000 colors BD (before dithering) :)

We’ll have to see if this suit can drum up the support the previous ‘millions of colors’ case lacked. Time will tell what happens… If nothing else this is keeping Apple’s legal team on their toes.

[via arstechnica]

26/03/2008

Apple News

Millions of Colors Lawsuit SettledApple has settled out of court on a 10-month old lawsuit over its displays and the number of colors it can/can’t display.

Two California-based professional photographers (Fred Greaves and Dave Gatley) filed a class-action back in May, saying they were tricked into buying some MacBook Pros because of the claim that they would display millions of colors.

The lawsuit noted:

“The displays are only capable of displaying the illusion of millions of colors through the use of a software technique referred to as ‘dithering’ “

According to the photographers’ attorney Peter Polischuk:

“They made a misrepresentation…They have a drop-down menu [in the Mac operating system] that lets you choose to display millions of colors.”

A clerk at the San Diego County Superior Court has said that Polischuk had called to say the suit has been settled. The plaintiffs decided not to pursue further because it was difficult to find other people that were ‘wronged’ for the same reason.

Another frivolous lawsuit draws to an end… Super!

[via Chicago Tribune]