Commentary: Displays Again--Class Action Suit to Sucker-Punch Apple?

Do you remember when 13" computer displays were 13" wide? Of course you don't because they never have been. The industry standard for measuring CRT displays has always been, at least as long as we remember, a diagonal measurement and it included up to the edge the CRT's internal mask. The display's case or bezel almost always extended a bit beyond the mask making the visible screen even a tad bit smaller than the naked CRT measurement.

Well, several purchasers of Apple displays became so incensed and claimed to be grossly injured because Apple never overtly stated that the measurement was diagonal rather than horizontal nor that the measurement was to the mask and not the case's/bezel's edge that they filed a class action suit against Apple. Like in almost all of these kind of suits against industry, Apple eventually settled.

We don't recall the exact terms of the settlement (a small discount on a purchase of another Apple product, maybe) but almost all such suits yield virtually nothing to the class members (except, perhaps, for the injured parties named in the suit and they usually don't get that much) and much to the lawyers. Subsequently, Apple (and everyone in the industry) always has to state that the display size is a diagonal measurement and the measurement is of the portion of the screen that is actually visible. Nothing actually changed except the display's description is now slightly more exacting and obvious.

Now, don't get us wrong. We certainly have nothing against lawyers per se and nothing against those who pursue really important consumer safety issues or major financial frauds. But some consumer-related actions seem to us to be of questionable value to consumers.

Fast-forward to May of 2007 and here comes another such lawsuit--or is it? Two individuals have filed a lawsuit against Apple (Greaves vs Apple Computer, Inc. [sic]) alleging:

• Deceptive advertising
• Unfair competition
• Violation of CLRA (California Legal Remedies Act)
• Misreprentation

and requesting summary judgement via a trial (see this PC World link for a PDF).

Both gentlemen purchased a MacBook and a MacBook Pro in 2006 and apparently dislike the screen quality of each product and, perhaps, dislike Apple's handling of their subsequent complaints about it although there is no mention of either in their complaint.

The crux of their lawsuit is that the notebook Macs are technically only able to display directly some hundreds of thousands of colors while Apple claims that they provide "...support for millions of colors...." The plaintiffs claim that Apple does so through an "illusion." The "illusion" is a so-called dithering technique that produces more colors to the eye. The plaintiffs claim that this has caused them monetary harm and are asking for a jury trial to find Apple guilty of their allegations, issue an injunction against Apple's advertising practices, award them and members of the class unspecified damages and award them costs and expenses, including attorneys' fees.

Our MacBook Pro (April 2006) and MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo (November 2006) have the very best screens of any notebook that we have ever used or have ever seen at the time of their purchase. They clearly have brighter screens with more vivid colors. They are not the more recent glossy variety. Does our observation lead us to believe that Greaves vs Apple Computer, Inc. [sic] is effectively frivolous and predatory? For the most part, we think the answer is yes but not completely yes.

Why do we say, "but not completely yes?" It hinges on how a jury might see a relatively technical issue, one that really only affects graphics professionals who might err or lose time in a color adjustment job by reasonably relying on Apple's representations and suffering damages as a consequence. As such, we see this as more of a case by case issue and less as a class action for all purchasers.

There is a claim circulating on the web (e.g. see colorblindmac.com) that MacBook and MacBook Pro LCD panels have only 6-bit pixels yielding 262 thousand colors rather than 16.7 million. The claim is that Apple (and presumably all notebook manufacturers) use lower bit LCDs and then use software dithering to make the LCD display show millions of colors to the eye from the lower number of actual direct colors. We don't know this to be true [Correction: this Apple article confirms 6-bit pixels but only specifically mentions dithering for the 17" Intel-based iMac] because there is no simple way to tell and Apple does not post these specifications. Some claim to have looked up the manufacturers' specifications for their MacBook/MacBook Pro displays and found they produce 262 thousand colors, not millions. Still, 262 thousand colors is far more than the 65.5 thousand normally associated with "thousands of colors." To us, it's a fine line with regard to most people as to whether dithering that effectively displays millions of colors to the eye is really deceptive advertising, unfair competition a violation of CLRA or misrepresentation. To us, what we see is more important than the technology that produces it and, with regard to the screens of our MacBook Pros, we like what we see--a lot.

When we open System Profiler on our 15" MacBook Pro C2D and look under Hardware->Graphics/Display, we find that its color LCD display is listed as having a depth of 32-bit color. This is also the same for our older 12" PowerBook G4, our 24" iMac Core 2 Duo and several-year-old 30" Apple Cinema Display. 32-bit color is millions of colors. If we open the Displays panel of System Preferences for each Mac and the Cinema Display, there is a popup menu with separate selections of 256 colors, Thousands and Millions. Thus, it would seem that all are the same and that all display millions of colors.

But Apple does not use exactly the same words in the listed technical specifications of all three situations:

MacBook/MacBook Pro: "support for millions of colors"

iMac Core 2 Duo: "Millions of colors at all resolutions"

Cinema: "16.7 million colors"

So there is at least a hint that there may be a difference, if indeed there is.

Finally, to graphics professionals who must match colors exactly, LCD displays are known to be problematic, not to mention notebook LCDs, and they have always used CRT displays if color matching really counts for something. Shouldn't real professionals be expected know the tools of their field? Isn't that what makes them successful professionals?

This will be an interesting case to follow. [Bill Fox]