Apple Sued For iMac Display Deception

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As much as I like to poke fun at Apple, even I feel sorry for them sometimes. I wonder how many times they get sued each year?

According to the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California in San Jose, Apple is deceiving consumers by concealing that the new 20-inch iMac monitors are inferior to the previous generation's and those of the new 24-inch iMac. In addition, the monitors are incapable of displaying "millions of colors," despite Apple's marketing claims.
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I really hope this takes off. The TN panel in the 20" is horrid.

I find it funny that the "source" says he has been working in photoshop since the 90s but cant tell the difference. I have an S-IPS monitor at home and was immediately shocked by how extremely bad the 20" display is when we got them in a lab at college. There are also white 20" imacs ina nother lab which have S-IPS and those look fantastic compared to the horrible new imacs.

I really think there needs to be a law or rule that requires all display makers to label what type of panel is being used in their display under the tech specs. It is definitely decieving when they release a first batch of monitors that are S-IPS to get great reviews and a good reputation and then quickly change to TN without telling anyone, I dont know how anyone could think otherwise.

We need some kind of standard to protect us from the dell lottery and apple switcharoo. Many products have these things in place to guarantee they meet a certain criteria, companies have been very abusive of their freedom to switch out panels and its quickly getting out of control.
 
That's not even the worse thing. TN panels can have decent gradients and viewing angles. With a good dither algorithm, it's not terrible.

But from reports, this panel exhibits banding. That's completely unacceptable.
 
It's hard not to hate them when they keep doing stupid crap every time you turn around.
 
I've got a "Hack Pro" on a 20" Dell at home. When I was at Fry's the other day, I played with the 20" iMac, and my very first thought was "wow, this monitor is crap." Guess I'm not imagining things.
 
Well... Somebody has got to be sued for the horrible-quality junk the industry is passing off as lcd's these days.

I'm still holding out, hoping I find a Samsung 215TW jammed underneath a shelf in a dark corner of an Office Depot somewhere...
 
InorganicMatter said:
I've got a "Hack Pro" on a 20" Dell at home. When I was at Fry's the other day, I played with the 20" iMac, and my very first thought was "wow, this monitor is crap." Guess I'm not imagining things.
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HACK PRO...LMAO...
Buy this you'll get professionally Hacked in under 2 minutes. Guaranteed.
 
I predict Apple will fight this time. Perhaps LG because this is LG LM201WE3 panel (from teardown pics) which according to LG has 16.7 Million colors.

Hey maybe Apple will have an incentive to sell a midtower without a built in monitor now. No built in monitor, no lawsuits about color. :)
 
From the article:

The fact, however, is that after seeing the iMac 20 and iMac 24 side by side, I can hardly notice the difference. Maybe I'm blind after working with Photoshop since the early '90s, but the photos, video and the whole interface look incredibly good on the 20-inch models.
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Yeah, he's just blind. I don't care how good your dithering is, if you can't tell in Photoshop between a 6bit panel and an 8bit panel, you're fucking blind. All you have to do is make a black to white gradient. Yes, some panels make it look pretty acceptable, but the difference is not transparent.

Maybe this Jesus Diaz' definition of work in photoshop is putting white text in a red bubble.
 
Then Dell, and Samsung, should both get sued after this. Wouldn't it the fair thing to do?
 
Im surprised Dell hasnt got sued because of the lottery crap. That would be fantastic as well.

There seriously need to be a change in how monitors are sold because it is going down hill very fast. Its sad when you consider just a couple years ago there were more S-IPS monitors to choose from that coule be had at good prices, now we are stuck with mostly 24"+ sizes if we want S-IPS and even then they may or may not be PVA despite what the specs say.

The way things are headed we wont be able to buy S-IPS monitors outside of absurdly expensive eizo and lacie monitors.
 
Yeah I was really looking into a 226BW, and then found out about lottery scams in the later pages of the thread. Without taking any chances, I got the 226CW, which supposedly was guaranteed S-Panel. I paid WAY over for it.

And then get this, after I buy it, I read around that the S-Panel is still not even all that :rolleyes:

I totally got jacked buying the monitor, although I didn't HAVE TO buy it, its just that about half the people have the S Panel and paid a lot less for it.
 
noc_81 said:
Well... Somebody has got to be sued for the horrible-quality junk the industry is passing off as lcd's these days.

I'm still holding out, hoping I find a Samsung 215TW jammed underneath a shelf in a dark corner of an Office Depot somewhere...
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Yeah I hope they pay out the ass for this. I have a TN pannel and it is easy to tell the difference between a TN pannel and a quality pannel. I can not sympathies with the author of the article, he is just a blind dumb ass.
 
Shouldn't they be suing all LCD makers then? They all claim their TN panels have 16.7 million colors these days. Back in the old days they claimed 16.2 million colors for TN, then they started claiming 16.7 million with dithering, and now they just claim 16.7 million period.
 
Steve said:
As much as I like to poke fun at Apple, even I feel sorry for them sometimes. I wonder how many times they get sued each year?
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You shouldn't feel sorry for them. It's high time someone slap manufacturers for panel lotteries and panel type switching during production of model.

Especially if it's apple who makes overhypping products their main marketing strategy.
 
Michaelius said:
You shouldn't feel sorry for them. It's high time someone slap manufacturers for panel lotteries and panel type switching during production of model.

Especially if it's apple who makes overhypping products their main marketing strategy.
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At least Apple is consistent. The Alu is a new model and anyone doing the slightest bit of research would know the 20" Alu iMac it is a TN.

Unlike Dell who you can order two identical models from (2007w/fp) and receive a different kind of panel each time. It wasn't a one time thing, Dell switched back and forth throughout the production run of 2007s. I was burned early on becasue the reviews said IPS and I got the PVA (which I don't like).

Ultimately I want to see honest reporting of panel type across the board. And the lawsuit should make it to the manufacturers as they are the ones (LG in this case) claiming 16.7 million colors for the display. Though I am not sure what FRC dithering actually delivers for colors...
 
At the end of the day, its clear marketing deception. They should have the tech guys review the marketing text before it goes out.
 
Really, if somone produces a more crappy product, what is it to the buyer?

Look at cars and movies, why aren't anyone suing them for keeping brining out junk over more junk and boasting it's the best yet.
 
Luthorcrow said:
At the end of the day, its clear marketing deception. They should have the tech guys review the marketing text before it goes out.
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Unfortunately for Apple for every tech guy there's about 500 marketing guys. The tech guy would never get any work done.
 
Luthorcrow said:
At the end of the day, its clear marketing deception. They should have the tech guys review the marketing text before it goes out.
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Oh, believe me, there were lots of tech guys involved. LCD marketing is a three-step process (which they ALL do) that goes like this:

1) Build the first run with IPS
2) Get great reviews
3) After all the good reviews come in, switch to PVA or TN

Apple just happens to be the company finally getting sued for this.
 
InorganicMatter said:
Oh, believe me, there were lots of tech guys involved. LCD marketing is a three-step process (which they ALL do) that goes like this:

1) Build the first run with IPS
2) Get great reviews
3) After all the good reviews come in, switch to PVA or TN

Apple just happens to be the company finally getting sued for this.
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Except with Apple they are completely different models (white vs aluminum). Unlike say Dell, that gives no indication there has been a change.

Everyone and their Dog knew the Aluminum 20" had a TN panel, it was no secret. There was hue and cry about this before the computers where even in user hands and many warnings to avoid the 20" Aluminum if you cared about image quality.
 
InorganicMatter said:
3) After all the good reviews come in, switch to PVA or TN
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Hey now, if its was PVA it would probably be a 8 bit panel and so no false advertising.

Snowdog said:
...There was hue and cry about this before the computers where even in user hands and many warnings to avoid the 20" Aluminum if you cared about image quality.
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Yes, but this is a false advertising issue and although the savvy consumer might be aware the average user would not. I don't most false advertising catches the informed user but it doesn't change the fact the company should be held accountable for shady practices (not implying you are saying that).
 
Luthorcrow said:
Yes, but this is a false advertising issue and although the savvy consumer might be aware the average user would not. I don't most false advertising catches the informed user but it doesn't change the fact the company should be held accountable for shady practices (not implying you are saying that).
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The average user wouldn't have an expectation of getting an IPS panel. Apples new low end has a TN panel the same as apples previous low end (17"). So in that sense the low end got better, it got a screen size increase.

What false advertising is there? Apple didn't say the panel was the same panel as a completely different older model and the is no reasonable expectation that demands that they are. The specs clearly show TN viewing angle stats and TN panels with FRC do support millions of colors. So where is the false advertising?
 
Bout time.

Get sick of ANY company doing this, but I love this even more just on the fact it's Apple... "Innovation", "Progression", "Quality"........ my ass.
 
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