Apple sued over 'inflated' iMac claims

Apple, the world's most successful brand, is being sued by a Los Angeles law firm for "deceptively" marketing the new 20-inch iMac Kabateck Brown Kellner says the monitor is "vastly inferior to the previous generation it replaced", not that you would know it from Apple's "grossly inflated" claims. According to the law firm, …

[Brendan Sullivan]

Why am I not surprised?

Honestly?

On top of lax security patching, inflated prices and its fan's everest-sized martyr-complex (as well as any other fruit related idiocy in the past couple weeks) now there's inferior monitors.

Wait... Why do I care? I don't own a single piece of their hardware and I only go near their temples to grab a bit of free wi-fi.

[Nexox Enigma]

Any surprise?

Apple is a corporation. The entire goal of any large corporation is to rape customers just enough to make the most money possible. A little bit of marketing and smooth plastic shouldn't be enough to confuse people about that.

Nearly every Apple release is accompanied by lies and half-truths.

"We switched to Intel because they're 4 times as fast" really meant "We make 4 times as much profit selling you cheap Intel chips, and you're all too ignorant to notice that the first few generations of our kit will be slower than the last PPC hardware by a huge factor."

I could go on, but it's pub o'clock.

[Paul Louth]

Sooo...

...Apple are having a bad week then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Same as usual

Just more overpriced hardware then, with less than a quarter of the stated performance.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not surpised in the least

I have been an apple user for my entire working life on computers and every year they get more shoddy than the last.

It is now becoming damn near impossible to say that Apple machines are rock solid, perfectly engineered machines that do what you want when you want it.

It's unfortunate that they seem to think that people will put up with badly designed products just because they are branded with an apple logo.

I for one am going to investigate building my own machine next time I'm ready to upgrade and make sure that all components are 'Rock Solid' from the beginning.

Signed

A very unhappy 2007 iMac 20" user....

[Will]

Happy April

happy april everyone?

mines the one with the applesauce stains....

[Mectron]

Finaly

The thrue comes out of the bag... Mindless Drone Mac users finally confronted with reality: Mac is pure crap,

get your self a nice custom built PC and install linux (if you don;t like Windows) and get real bang for your buck. witch is impossible with a Mac Canned PC that is more restricton the the chinese regime.

Give it a few more years and Apple will just be another PC maker.. RIP free BSD... heu i mean Mac OS (or is it CrapOS?)

Why Here? because she have the IQ of a typical Mac user.

[Qingdom]

Apple Fools!

Title says it all. See you next year, Mr. Jobs.

----------------------------------------------------------

"The Date people! Look at the damn Date!" - Lawrence Fishburne

[Chad H.]

heh

it looks like apples claims are almost as vastly inflated as the apple haters, heh heh.

Word must have gotten around apple are making money again, in America, you seem to be able to sue for almost anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

well if you must by apple

If you really need or want a Mac then buy a Mac Mini and stick a monitor of *your* choice on it, not the rubbish that Apple want to peddle. The same thing goes for buying PCs, don't get the 'free' monitor that Dell et al. bundle with the machine.

[Sebastian]

must be kiddin...

only 262,144 colors on the new 20-inch iMac????!

[Anonymous Coward]

So glad someone is sueing them

Mine is crap and taking it back to Apple they do not seem to care when I say the colours are flat.

Hope they have their arse dragged through the court then I will take mine back and wave the court order in front of the guy behind the till.

[Thomas Reynolds]

I brought one of those macs

I brought the new iMac and I can say I couldn't care less. I love macs and since we got one, no one has used the windows. We got this new iMac to replace the little used Windows (custom built) and it works a charm. As far as I can see it looks better than the old iMac screen (which I also have). It may be April fools day, but Windows users, your the fools 'cos you haven't or don't use the power and greatness that is mac.

PCs are awful. I have had 3 of them and I got frustrated and hated each one. The last one broke 7 times in 6 months. I now have 2 macs and I love 'em. Never had a single problem, they both work well with windows and I have no problems sending files to and from windows.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheap screens - more common than you realise.

I'd wager everyone posting above is using a TN screen, doubly so if they're using a laptop.

[Giles Jones]

Simple, don't buy an iMac

Any integrated device is going to be full of compromises. The only way to avoid such compromises is to buy a tower machine.

iMacs are full of laptop technology anyway, it seems they've now extended this to the screen as well (many laptops don't do 24-bit colour).

[Anonymous Coward]

No April Fools

Sadly this story is true.

@ AC - Cheap screens

I'd wager that most people posting are using TFT screens, not twisted nematic (STN/DSTN), they're very uncommon now. Please don't spread horseshit just 'cos you love Apple so much.

[Slaine]

no comment

after all, were it not for inflated claims, misleading statements and downright lies, there would be absolutely no need for advertising executives (or indeed politicians for that matter). Now then, where's that fat free invisible donut gone that the nice man sold me this morning?

[Jason]

Glad I bought the previous one

Thanks people, I feel far better at having bought the previous version a couple of months before the new one came out :)

As for the uber geeks on here - get a life!!! its an operating system on a peice of machinery - it enables you to do something and depending on what it is it will do it slightly better or worse than the rival system.

After years of shit windows machines crashing and freezing up, I have now been a mac user for around 10 months and am very, very pleased.

Having said that, some windows machines are great/reliable/cheaper.

But who really gives a fuck? No seriously come on? why do you care so much? Explain Phreaky explain!!!!!

[Ian North]

20" iMac

I kind of agree with Thomas Reynolds although I don't love Apple quite so much. I have one of the new generation 20" iMacs too. I use it with a Dell 2001FP screen and there is a noticable difference between the two screens, the Dell is much nicer. That said, I'm not too bothered. The iMac's screen is good enough for my purposes and lets face it, 20" 8 bit panels are getting to be like hen's teeth these days anyway.

[Mark Broadhurst]

Macs are good for creative work...

not anymore if they have crap screens.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac Screens

Oh dear.

My 'doze PC which I've been faithfully rebuilding with new motherboard/cpu/memory every other year for as long as I remember has finally got to the point where it needs yet another refresh (Damn commodity components on motherboards don't last long these days).

As a Unix convert of many years I figured it'd be an interesting experiment to have a go with a Mac pro. After all, you get the best graphical interface around, combined with 'nix under the hood. Have just ordered a dual quad-core xeon machine with raid card and multiple drives. I'm interested to see how Leopard turns out, as FreeBSD is my OS of choice. I mean, what the heck - if it turns out to be a big pile of shite, I can pretty easily nuke Apples OS off it and install the real thing - thats the price Apple pay for their switch to the more ubiquitous PC architecture :-))

...But now this article has got me worried about the one component I thought I could rely on as being reasonably decent - the 23" Apple Cinema screen.

...oh, and after another fairly recent article on El Reg, I'm holding my breath to see what drives they ship with it ('enterprise class'? yeahhhhhh right). If they've used those rubbish Hitachi (ex IBM) death-star drives (Or worse - Maxtor!), I might send the whole lot back under the 14-day mail order consumer protection clause and write it off as a very bad decision.

C'mon Reg - You're posting articles about Apple every other day now - wheres the Evil/Saint Jobs icons? Even better, wheres the "Acid-trip Jobs" icon :-))

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple Cinema Screens

Apple Cinema Screens are mostly from the same factory as Dell monitors, the 20 inch iMac may be an exception.

To AC, theres been no reports of the 23" having issues, so i doubt you have much to worry about. Cnet and other review sites have reported no issues with those screens. If anything the standalone Cinema screens still hold themselves to good repute.

That said, it is quite dodgy of Apple to put in such a low quality monitor into the 20" iMacs, i wouldnt blame people for suing them over it. Hopefully its a lesson they'll learn from.

[Vernon Lloyd]

A company taking advantage of its customers.......

.....WOW, I DO NOT BELIEVE IT.

Remember: 'A Computer is a tool for a purpose, whereas a fanboys purpose is to drool over the tool, is blinkered by the tool and cannot see the beauty of other tools'

They are all the same, some do some jobs better than the others. Simple and to the point.

[John Bayly]

Almost 24bbp

Had a quick google and found this article:

http://lowendmac.com/musings/07/0521.html

Apparently they can say it's millions, tenuous as it is.

Don't agree with the blog's parting comment though. As in the Reg article, if you're editing 24bit images, some different colours may be displayed on screen as the same colour. Not good really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but they are special *APPLE* colours...

262,144 iColors, that "Just Work", and are therefore waaay better than 16,777,216 shitty M$ PC colours. So there.

[Neil Hoskins]

Aaaahh.....

I was nearly taken in by the exploding sociology teacher, but *this* one is the April Fool one, designed to induce apoplexy in the fanboys, and I claim my five pounds.

[Ben Mathews]

MacBook

They just settled for essentially the same issue with their MacBook screens..

http://www.tuaw.com/2008/03/26/apple-settles-out-macbook-class-action-lawsuit/

[Anonymous Coward]

Just proves Mac buyers can't read

Most photo forum sites covered this ages ago (6 bit vs. 8 bit colour depth that is). Apple even says it's 6 bit.

If the buyers can't be bothered to read the specs and just buy it cos it's Apple then that's their own fault.

Bloody Mactards (!!!!!!)

[Whitter]

Less said about the grammar the better

The only entertaining aspects to these stories are the fanboys of whatever flavour in the comments. A good example from the above: "I love macs and since we got one, no one has used the windows. ... they both work well with windows and I have no problems sending files to and from windows."

Hmmm... looks like a solid case of selective memory.

[Steve Todd]

I dispair of some people, I realy do

A studio grade monitor for image editing can easily cost more than an entry level iMac. These people are complaining that a £800 entry level home machine isn't suitable for profesional grade image editing because the colour isn't accurate enough?

For those idiots complaining about the Mac screen looking washed out, go read up about Gamma curves. Apple defaults theirs to 1.8. PCs use 2.2 (more contrasty). You can adjust either OS to either curve (like turning the cuntrast up or down on your TV). Using 6 bit colour does not reduce the richness of the colour, it reduces the accuracy.

As for Mectron, are we taking bets on how close to age 12 he is?

[Murray Pearson]

@ Steve Todd

Thanks, Steve, you're right on the money in terms of colour intensity vs. fidelity. A low-bit-depth monitor will not look "flat", it will have posterized gradients.

I know what I'm talking about; I'm prepress journeyman with 20 years experience, using a Mac Mini with a pretty decent (but *not perfect*) Samsung 24" widescreen that cost under $500 Cdn last fall. I wouldn't use this display in a demanding professional environment (I'd stick with CRTs still if colour REALLY matters), but at home it's Jim-dandy.

[Neil]

A title is required.

Considering the designer types are the only reason Apple still exist, that's pretty awful I remember the ONLY place you'd see macs was in the publishing/design depts back in the days I hoped the bloody things would disappear forever. (still do)

@Steve Todd, freudian slip there mate?

[flame66]

You are all April fools!

Funny how the truth is now out on April fools day? Funny how you never see any Macs in skips outside offices? Nuf said!

[LJSeinfeld]

Neck-bearded fools

Look-

While I'm disappointed that Apple is using fuzzy math to describe the capability of the 20" iMac display, I grow even more tired of the "because-you-can-build-a-$200-PC-out-of-commodity-parts-clear-silicone-and-duct-tape,-your-Mac-is-an-overpriced-POS" douche's that seem to thrive in various blogs, web forums, etc.

I built a hackintosh PC with commodity parts, used good ones, and guess what? It cost me nearly $1000.00 USD to do so. The only advantage (and I consider it a small one given the cost and availability of good external drives) to a comparable iMac system is that I have room for extra optical drives and hard drives. But guess what -- it doesn't "just work" (sorry for the cliché) like all of my real Macs do. It took considerable tweaking to get it where I'd consider it a viable system- until the next software update breaks something.

Trying to explain the Mac's benefit to the FOSS/Linux or Windows drones is like trying to describe the color blue to a blind man. Mostly futile, and somewhat irritating.

While your still trying to compile drivers for your wifi, and figuring out how to get DVD playback to work, I'll be *getting actual work done* on my Mac(s).

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Steve Todd

Quote: "...(like turning the cuntrast up or down on your TV)."

The WHAT?

[Adam]

@Thomas Reynolds

"We got this new iMac to replace the little used Windows (custom built)"

Then... "PCs are awful... The last one broke 7 times in 6 months."

So you built a PC, and despite being little-used it broke every 4 weeks... and you blame it on Windows? No offence mate, but are you sure the problem doesn't lie between the chair and the keyboard?

Unfortunately, to get the most out of a Mac (which is more than just using it to run iLife and look pretty on your desk), one needs just as much computing skill as a typical Windows power user anyway. Mac isn't the user-friendly intuitive uber-easy OS that many believe it to be, at least not if you want to make it do exactly what YOU want and not just what Apple decided you should do.

[Peter Kay]

'Studio grade monitors'

Damn right people are complaining. For 800 quid it's entirely reasonable to expect a full colour monitor - especially as it can't be changed, and because it is what Apple reinforces its machines are supposedly good at.

Also, given Apple's target market ('it just works') they shouldn't be trying this sort of crap.

As to respondents here having crappy monitors - well, the TFT at work is probably crap, but then again it's not used for image editing. The CRT at work, the CRTs at home and the TFT at home render colour properly (yes, I checked before I bought).

[Anonymous Coward]

so

since when has the quality of the hardware been an issue, fitting a crappy screen can easily be compensated for with some uber kool advert.

bring it on i say, thinking is for loosers with too much time on my hands.

p.s. when will apple start telling me what to wear it would save soo much effort

smily face: as lights are on on by no one is at home

[Jon Green]

How did Apple make such a blunder?

Apple's most profitable and loyal niche markets are in the creative industries. Many films and journals are edited on Macs, and it's the designer's tool of preference.

It's just about impossible to do effective work in any of those niches using a 6:6:6 bit colour monitor.

Metatarsals, meet buckshot. Buckshot, these are metatarsals.

[Law]

@ Thomas Reynolds

"PCs are awful. I have had 3 of them and I got frustrated and hated each one"

I tell you what - real guitars suck, I had one for 2 years and I got frustrated and hated it, it would always break down and I would need to replace the strings.. it was hell!! Then I got guitar hero 2 - and now I'm a guitar rock legend, and I've only had it 3 months - we even got a second recently that was even better, called Guitar Hero 3. Soon I'm going to be an awesome drummer and front man too in my very own band, thanks to Rock Band. Real guitar owners are idiots!! :)

I'm not one for defending Windows, but all your statement tells me is that you really suck at using computers at any decent level.... sounds like it's just the marketing making you feel slightly better about your lack of skillz! :p

[Anonymous Coward]

w**k

the fact is apple are totally wank - more so than microsoft ever were

anyone who defends them must be some sort of sado masaochistic fruitcake

defend them at yer peril!

[Tom]

"Macs are good for creative work"

WHAT!!!! Is this because they fit into your middle class utopian dream fairy tale fantasy land with there marketing techniques and product design that match your recumbant bicycle. Can you tell me exactly what a predesposed overpriced poorly supportable platform has over an infinatlety configurable PC platform? idiot, Jobs deserves your money!

[PH]

Yawn!

I've been meaning to say this for years...

Anyone who has actually got some genuine IT industry experience under their belts should have ample experience of BOTH platforms - and they'll know that BOTH Mac and PC are shit, in their own different but equally irritating ways. I won't bother with examples - if you're a pro you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

To the rest of you gentlemen: Guys, it's 2008 - give the Mac vs PC debate a frickin rest, will ya, it's really getting as tired and boring as Northern Ireland did.

Happy poisson x

[Jolyon Ralph]

Millions? no. Thousands? no. 189 colours. That's all

6-bit colour flat panels can display a whopping total of 189 real colours. Everything else is done by combination of these 63 shades of red, green and blue (plus black of course). Don't believe me?

Use a magnifying glass...

Jolyon

[Chris iverson]

@LJSeinfeld

"While your still trying to compile drivers for your wifi, and figuring out how to get DVD playback to work, I'll be *getting actual work done* on my Mac(s)."

Yes yes, thats fine. Please help me find a unique and creative way to check my email, that by paying the jobs tax that I am unique and creative and I can show it off. Thats what macs sell you on right? and that its based off a bastardized form of *nix. Also my ramshackled duct tape PC that is strung together with fishing line is still having no hardware support issues given whatever turd OS I throw at it.

Ya know, computers are really getting lame. I think I am just gonna go outside and

feed a penguin an apple and decide where I want to go today with a little devil.

Screw you guys, im going outside

[Hywel Thomas]

@ Adam

You make a few points that I'd like to address...

1. Thomas Reyonlds is the problem between chair and keyboard with respect to his self-built Windows box. I do not disagree. I doubt that Tomas Reynolds has reason to disagree either. The conclusion remains the same. He solved his problem by using a Mac instead. There may be other solutions, such as getting an expert to build the box or getting training to build the box, but the simplest/quickest solution in this case seems to have been to use a Mac instead.

In a similar situation for other people, the simplest/quickest solution to figuring out how to get a Mac to work would be to build their own PC instead.

2. Getting the most out of a Mac is more than using iLife. I dispute this. A Mac may have been bought purely to run iLife for organising photos or purely to run Garageband. That user would very much be getting the most out of his Mac.

To argue that this is not true is rather like suggesting that a designer who only uses her PC to run autocad is not getting the most of it. If that's what she bought it for, then that's what she bought it for.

My mother-in-law gets the 'most' out of her MacBook. She runs Mail, iPhoto, Safari and NeoOffice, occasionally scans something and occasionally prints something.

3. This "typical Windows power user" thing is a red-herring. What does 'power' mean ? It's not CPU usage. Someone encoding a DVD in iLife or watching soemone falling over on Youtube is likely using more computing power than someone who spends all day writing code. Typical 'Power' User then is not Typical User. It's a user who needs an atypical level of control. An atypical user.

This it requires special skills to be an atypical (Power) user on a Mac should not be a surprise. And the tools are there for you. So to be a typical 'power' user on a Mac is no more difficult on Windows. In some cases OS-X would be a better choice. It's a genuine certified UNIX, after all.

And they look pretty too, which is a nice bonus.

As for the topic of the thread, I think this is a perfectly valid class action. Regressing the spec of the display and not making it clear is a pretty shitty underhand thing to do.

[Rachel]

Love it

I love it, a company gets sued because they falsely advertise a new product and suddenly its back to the old wars of Mac is better than PC and whatnot.

Who even cares. The fact is, if you lie about something, you better cleanup your act.

If you like Mac and they are starting to slip in some lies, you better start screaming, or in a few years, you will find that you no longer like them. Don't run around with puppy dog eyes and blindingly trust them just because you dislike the current other options.

Sometimes corporations are like little kids. They want to know what they can get away with. If you dont' slap their hands now, next time they might be taking the hundred dollar bill instead of the quarter.

[Hywel Thomas]

@ PH

"BOTH Mac and PC are shit, in their own different but equally irritating ways."

That's fucking irrefutable !

[Hywel Thomas]

@ Thomas Reynolds

Just to be balanced...

Your experience is anecdotal. While you can use it to base your future puchases on, as have I, it's not fact.

I don't buy Epson Printers, Samsung hard drives or Windows PCs because in my experince, they've been shit. That doesn't mean they ARE shit (or any shittier than the competition), it just means that I'm making a statement as a consumer that having wasted money on those brands in the past, they don't deserve a second chance yet. It's not based on fact though, it's just personal experience.

The 'yet' is important. We had a Dyson, and while it was good, it fell apart after 2 years. So we went through a few other makes, and while they didn't fall apart as such, they were shit. in the meantime Dyson brought in a 5 year warranty to entice us back to the brand.

So I may buy Epson/Samsung/Microsoft in the future, but both what I was using would have to be shit, and they'd have to do something to convince me that they'd improved.

[Rob]

ooh, shiny

I get the impression that mac's are for non-technical people who think they are, and people who value form over function.

Paris, as her form and function are both worth checking out. (& she'd use apple stuff)

[J]

@Mac screens AC

"C'mon Reg - You're posting articles about Apple every other day now - wheres the Evil/Saint Jobs icons?"

Er... How about the last two at the bottom row?

[Edward Maher]

Mac forever

One thing I can say that will never change, the proliferation of idiots that will whine and whine, rather than move on. These people can't spell, can't articulate and can't move beyond their petty problems. I made a choice to buy the iMac 24" because commonsense dictated that it would be easier to view, put two pages at one time on the screen, etc. I actually went to a store and compared all the units, not accepted the marketing ads or the specs. After taking a good look at each, playing with them and doing my own research, I made my decision, plus added a 500 GB HD and an extra 1K GB memory chip. Am I happy with my choice? Yes, very much and, oh yes, the restrictions that were noted by another PC loser, just how much time are you spending taking your computer apart, rather than simply using it? I compare this to those that purchase a high-tech cooking range, washer or dryer and never use more than the one cycle and there are millions that do this. When was the last time the "PC" user take their laptop apart? Often, I hope.

In closing, can you run two totally different operating systems at the same time on the same computer? I made several predictions over the years and so far, I've batted a 100. The VCR vs Beta, renting vs buying, Video Record vs DVD, DVD vs other formats and now the Mac vs PC. I don't want to burst your bubble, but the Mac is a PC (personal computer). The Mac was first, then the "PC." A significant portion of the "PC" world has shown itself to be more devious than the Mac users as is confirmed by the fact that most of all the viruses produced are by PC users, not Mac. APRIL FOOLS, just another indication of how this proves my point.

The MAC is the future; without innovation as Mac has show they can do and do well we would still be driving a Model T car. Apple comes out with an advanced phone that works and does more for the average user than any other phone and guess what, the other manufacturers are racing to come out with their own version. Take a look at the patents that Apple is applying for and you will see the future standing still while the Mac morphs into the computer we only dreamed of.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Rob

Well, I have over 15 years experience in IT and for what its worth...

Lost too much of my life trying to keep PC's working, SickNote (my last PC) takes 15 minutes to actually become productive, and is not a wimpy machine.

Linux too geeky even for me, most of the LinuxHeads I know are getting excited over the latest wongo driver/program/application, sad!!

Macs, start up fast, allow me to do my development tasks, dont crash/freeze that often (and its usually me who caused it!!)

BTW have you noticed the number of MACS on tv now, apart from in adverts and plays, you see them every where, in news reports etc etc.

Apple have their faults, as do all vendors, however life for me has been more productive since I changed over, and thats what counts.

(And they are shiny too!!)

[Hywel Thomas]

@ Rob

I understand why you would be under the impression that "Macs are for non-technical people who think they are".

I think it's a false impression.

OS-X, I think, is probably better for non-technical people thatn Windows or Linux. They're also good for the technical people that support non-technical users.

The impression that they're also for people "who value form over function", is also a little misguided. I see it more as for people who value form AND function. That is to say, the overall design. Form is not just aesthetics.

I was willing, for example, to put up with a fair bit of weight to get a 17" HD display on my machine. I need it to be portable, but I don't carry it around every day.

Someone who buys a MacBook Air may be buying it not because it's fashionable, but because they've considered the form AND function and, realising that they carry it around all day see that the advantage of the form far outweighs the functional need for, say, an optical drive, or a media card reader.

[Danny]

Another misguided iFool

'The MAC is the future; without innovation as Mac has show they can do and do well we would still be driving a Model T car. Apple comes out with an advanced phone that works and does more for the average user than any other phone and guess what, the other manufacturers are racing to come out with their own version. Take a look at the patents that Apple is applying for and you will see the future standing still while the Mac morphs into the computer we only dreamed of.'

OK, just to pull this apart a bit

The MAC is the future - how many years old and what % market share?

without innovation as Mac has show they can do and do well we would still be driving a Model T car - what innovation would that be - the ability to make crap look shiny? The iPod? I think you will find they stole an awful lot from creative and ended up paying 100mil to say sorry. Please name for me the last thing that Apple did that was truly innovative

Apple comes out with an advanced phone that works and does more for the average user than any other phone

Advanced how? it's missing a shedload of features that others have had for 5+ years - and that 'innovative' interface? Check out fingerworks - I think you will find it is them who did all the legwork, Apple merely bought them when they had developed enough to be interesting. Doing exactly the same thing that you no doubt slag MS for when they do the same thing - but it's OK when it's Apple right?

Take a look at the patents that Apple is applying for and you will see the future standing still while the Mac morphs into the computer we only dreamed of

Most of the patents they are applying for a crap with prior art invalidating them They even tried to patent an extra-wide mouse touchpad. How can you patent something merely because you have made it bigger? That ever so nice patent of theirs showing a macbook docking into the monitor - already been done. Who says these patents will actually make it into products? More likely only a couple will, the rest will sit there until somebody else makes a product that slightly infringes it, then they will jump on that company like patent trolls.

[Scott]

To all the Mactard April Fools...

Sorry, it's true. The press release was yesterday, and that's when tech news outlets picked-up on the story.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207000876

http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/apple_sued_for_20_inch_imac_deception/

Of course, I went to the proverbial horse's mouth too, but unfortunately, the so-called "tech specs" on Apple.com aren't very technical and are rather vague. It seems to be more of the same behavior I've seen from them, such as misleading their loyal customers back in 2000 or so about the Mac platform's performance relative to the Wintel platform. The only problem was that the benchmark they were using compared a year-old Pentium-series processor to the brand new PowerPC processor. There was a much newer iteration of the Pentium at the time, which ran on a faster frontside bus, but they chose to intentionally mislead their customers, most of whom appear to have lost the ability to question and verify the claims. This revelation was much to the chagrin of my friend who worked for an Apple-authorized service center, who smugly directed me to Apple's website where that claim of superior performance was being made. Not only did being directed to read the facts for himself (and seeing that I was correct...it was all there on Apple's site in the fine print) sting, but I think the realization that Apple had basically lied to the faithful stung even more.

[Ned Ludd]

Crap

All this debate over platform superiority is really enlightening, but personally I think the Commodore 64 is complete crap!

[Brendan Sullivan]

@ Mac forever

Apple is the great innovator? The ones that will innovate so much that we will see "the future standing still"?

Sorry I must have just dreamed the whole thing about how a Xerox PARC team invented the mouse and the GUI desktop which Apple bought off of them.

Or the bit about how their "advanced phone that works and does more for the average user than any other phone" offers fairly similar features to my Palm T|X (which has been on the market since 2005) and is (yet again) based on an interface purchased from another company.

Oooh, how about the way Macs used to be so ultra-proprietary in every way that it's pretty much impossible to recover data from the special Mac-format disks without very specific kit.

Maybe it was the way they were so innovative and unique in combining the monitor and CPU into a single unit...oh, wait Amiga and Atari and a bunch of other early PC makers did those too, and did them earlier.

And what is this about Macs being PCs? Personal computers they might be but PCs they aren't, well the new Intel chip ones are in a way, before the changeover no Mac was a PC since PCs were x86 architecture computers based on the design of the IBM PC (which gave them the original name of "PC Compatibles").

[Mad Hacker]

Apple has never given detailed specs for their monitors

Ok, I own several Macs, but do you know how many Apple displays I own? None.

That's because Apple doesn't give specs like refresh rates for different colors and true bitness.

I'm a Mac user, and I hope they get sued a lot over this.

[sleepy]

It is 24 bit colour.

As is pointed out above, the impression of millions of colours on any monitor is created by dithering in some form or other; they only have monochromatic red, green and blue dots which are mixed to deliver the perceived colours. With FRC (time dithering), 6 bit monitors can also deliver 8 bits worth of shades. So the difference here is subtle, but 24 bit colour is what is sent to the screen, and to an external monitor if you connect one.

Apple's lowest price Mac has always been lower in spec. and often not such good value at the retail price as higher spec models. But this enables Apple to offer fantastic deals to education when required, with large apparent discounts. That's business in the face of politics and naive educational buying. Most manufacturers use 6 bit panels on their lowest spec machines.

As always, read the reviews, make your own judgement.

[Tomasz Kuczborski]

Complimenti, ragazzi e ragazze!

You all sound like well trained orchestra. Unisono, I would say.

A who is the Maestro? Please, come on stage!

[Steven Raith]

Another 'I've worked in IT fifteen years' one...

....who has endless problems with their PC. A point I have raised before. Project managers work in IT, but I wouldn't trust one to plug a mouse into the right socket, never mind maintain a Windows box!

"Well, I have over 15 years experience in IT and for what its worth...

Lost too much of my life trying to keep PC's working, SickNote (my last PC) takes 15 minutes to actually become productive, and is not a wimpy machine."

Your hard drive/s are probably either heavily fragmented, mixed in with lots of startup programs, your hard drives have lots of bad sectors, the registry is getting knackered or a mixture of all four.

I would suggest an overnight defrag, then select all the tickboxes in the Disk Check section on the disk properties, reboot it before you go to bed and let it churn away.

Then get a hold of Microsoft BootVis, do a boot trace, it will time your bootup including driver delays and disk activity. Once you have done that, optimise it, then retrace the boot sector and see the improvement - it can make an *astounding* difference on a machine that has been in use for a while.

And if it's still a bit slow, then get a decent registry cleaner.

Then there is the option of a full reformat/rebuild if that doesn't help. Beyond that, you are probably looking at physical disk problems [replace them] or a mobo/memory problem [replace them]

Of course, you shouldn't have to do any of that! ;-)

"Linux too geeky even for me, most of the LinuxHeads I know are getting excited over the latest wongo driver/program/application, sad!!"

Meh, I use Linux, not because my Windows box is as shagged as your one [for being four years old and with a few little tweeks to the hardware it's still grunty enough to run FEAR at a respectable lick and multitask amiably] but because like you, I got bored of the odd little "twinges" that XP boxes get from time to time when all I wanted to do was wank and bank. That, and the fact that I have an old laptop here that runs Ubuntu better than it runs XP - even with all the shiny graphical effects switched on. Ubuntu doesn't like my desktop graphic card tho. But then Ububtu doesn't like my current favourite waste of time, rFactor [top racing game if anyone is interested], either - so XP stays. It has it's uses.

"Macs, start up fast, allow me to do my development tasks, dont crash/freeze that often (and its usually me who caused it!!)"

And that's of use to you - and who am I to argue? I've been playing with Mac OS X 10.5.1/2/whatever the latest one is and I must admit, it's quite nice, but not as intuitive as I expected it to be after all the hype of OS X being the Next Big Thing in OSs. Maybe too long in the M$ world, perhaps. Still, it's shiny, quiet, and runs multiple apps without a hitch.

I fancy getting a bit more OS X experience under my belt [I expect my experience in Linux-land shell stuff won't hurt] but the more I diversify my desktop environs at work and at home, the less I give a stuff about [insert OS here] and the more I care about what I can I do with it, how much control and customisation I get with it [after all, it is mine, innit?] and how much it pisses me off - which they all do, to a degree.

For the moment, Ubuntu wins overall, XP second, and OS X is somewhere in the outfield till I get a proper look at it.

Oh, and finally:

"(And they are shiny too!!)"

Amen to that mah bruthah - I'm looking at one of those Shuttle-esque MiniITX aluminium jobs to wang a core2duo in with a MythTV media centre job at some point. Slightly tricker than buying a Mac Mini - but then, I'm a desktop/hardware tech - I love this shit, heresy thought it is to admit it these days....!

In short, I disagree with your anti-windows comments to a degree, but overall, i think we are in the same boat in a roundabout sort of way. We get what we want from our OS's.

However, the 6-bit shit from Mac The Hardware Vendor - now that's just a cheap shot. A fine example of when public image and private habits mix [see Max Mosley - what a guy! and Creative's adhoc, user distributed Vista drivers...] - Glock, meet toe...

I enjoyed that little mild mannered rant. :-)

Steven R

[Charles Manning]

@Steve Todd

Cuntrast? Does this only impact on pinkish hues?

[S]

Twice the price - half as nice

The last Apple product I bought was Rubber Soul.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Slaine

Or Lawyers...

[Andy Worth]

@PH

"BOTH Mac and PC are shit, in their own different but equally irritating ways."

Pretty much the most unbiased (and in fact most true) statement anyone has made on this story.

[Michael]

Really?

So, the model was introduced in August 2007 with screens so bad that it took 8 months for one user to spot it?

Just popping out to buy a teletype............

[Jason Clery]

Apple

Since MS is noted as M$, Apple is now App£e

[Anonymous Coward]

re: App£e

"Since MS is noted as M$, Apple is now App£e"

Or how about App£€?

[James]

@Everyone reading the comments guide to composing comments on el reg.

It really does make interesting reading these days, the comments section of the register. I think their should be a guide for those people unsure how to wade into an el reg comments OS/hardware war:

When writing inflammatory comments about "the enemy" do not forget to use linux as an argument for your own side. For example:

"windows is shit, get a mac and if you don't like the OS just put linux on it, simple" or

"macs are shit, get a cheap box with windows and if you don't like the OS just put linux on it, simple"

Also remember that by appending "..., simple" to the end of a remark you are demoralising "the enemy" by making them feel as though they are thick and/or as though you are more wise thus giving your argument more weight.

Spelling is also important, take the following sentence by Mectron

"The thrue comes out of the bag... Mindless Drone Mac users finally confronted with reality: Mac is pure crap,"

By spelling badly you give "the enemy" a false ammunition, so when they inevitably counter with "...and lern to spel you 12 year old thick sh*t..."

even though their age guess is likely to be right they do not need to know that and you can counter their counter with "before you write a comment like that learn to spell yourself. Also is that all you can say to beat me 'learn to spell?"

Usually your initial witty inflammatory comments (and all proceeding witty counter attacks) should finish with a witty but badly spelt put down such as:

"Why Here? because she have the IQ of a typical Mac user." - also by Mectron

making good use of the new comment images. Or even a more heartfelt I-know-better-than-you line:

"The MAC is the future; without innovation as Mac has show they can do and do well we would still be driving a Model T car." - by someone above but I cant remember the name.

But also remember that as you start to grow older and wiser you need to take reality checks. Because people like Vernon Lloyd who say:

"Remember: 'A Computer is a tool for a purpose, whereas a fanboys purpose is to drool over the tool, is blinkered by the tool and cannot see the beauty of other tools'

They are all the same, some do some jobs better than the others. Simple and to the point."

Can't be right, they are admiting "the enemy" is OK, they must be ignored...

Disclaimer: All of the above post was submitted in jest, but any resemblance of examples to actual posts is purely... coincidental...

And my moral standings lie with Vernon Lloyd, NOONE GIVES A FUCK WHAT YOU THINK WE SHOULD USE. - note the capitals to make my opinion look louder, and the use of "noone gives a..." implying that there are lots of people who take my view and I must be right...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never heard of

An MS monitor I had a Microsoft mouse once but I liked my Logitech better. The point I am trying to make is look to hardware sellers to make price quality comparisons not everything is software. That icon is Steve Jobs BTW for anyone using a cheap monitor.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Steven Raith

Re BootVis

Am I surprised, no not really

when I tried to download this file at

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/platform/performance/fastboot/bootvis.mspx

I was rewarded with....

We’re sorry, but we were unable to service your request. You may wish to choose from the links below for information about Microsoft products and services.

Thanks any way, good luck with Leopard

[Michael C]

corrections

First: unless your images were taken with an extremely expensive tripple CCD camera supporting true 24 bit color, than even a 6 bit (technically 18 bit) color monitor can display every color and more your camera can represent.

Second: Apple's prices are not inflated. Go to Dell.com, try to build a comperable system to either an iMac, Mac Pro, Macbook, or Macbook Pro. You can't do it, the Dell systems are ALL more expensive. (if you leave out the webcam you can build a macbook clone that's $30 cheaper than Apple, but since Dell doesn't offer 13" system with dedicated video, you have to get a 14" which is bigger and weighs more than a pound more). You CAN build a cheaper Dell than a mini, but then it's also not 10" square... the Mac Pro ($2700) equiovolent from Dell, $4000...

Third, sicne dithering is done at 70Hz, and the human eye only sees at about 30, dithering 6 bit color can actually produce 100X more colors than the eye and brain are capable of seeing. (about 68 billion colors) Only in rare cases with specifically designed images can the difference be seen.

Fourth: Placing a dell screen side by side with any other, iMac or not, is not a fair comparison. The Dell screen you have likely has a much deeper black as most stand alone monitors do, and also will have a diferent pre-set contract rating. If you want a good screen, add a Cinema display beside your iMac, or get any one of a number from Acer, LG, or Samsung that use the 6ms display panels. They'll all outshine the Dell screen. On a side note, the Apple display is made by the same people that supply most of Dell's own monitor panels... I happen to have 3 Acer 19" monitors on my desk. All the of them show colors slightly different even though they're all the same model and all have the same software configuration. It took me hours of using the OSD controls to even get them close to each other... I have 2 Westinghouse (panels made by samsung) professional series 22" screens, and they are perfectly identical. The Westinghouse screens were designed for editing, the Acer not.

fifth: no real people expect you to do professional editing on an iMac. If you have a $2000 digital SRL or $400 hansol digital camera, a copy of Photoshop, and plan on taking high res 24 bit images, then realistically your looking at a system comperable to a Mac Pro, and you'll want a 24 or 30" display anyway. If you're editing the pics from your 8MP Sony camera, it's only a "simulated" 24 bit image, taken by snapping 3 quick images in succession on the same CCD panel, thereby being a DITHERED image in the first place, and with even lower accuracy than a 6 bit display (18 bit native color)

Six: The screen type used in the 24" mac is no longer available in 20" models. there was one choice; use a TN 20" instead of the ISP used in the 24", or go even further below to a TFT, which although techniocally has better color accuracy, but has visible range limits, requires more power, and is actually 2 screens glued together (and you can usually see the line halfway through and using metering devices tell a color difference between the top and bottom screens on most TFT displays). They're still displaying millions of colors. your eye can't tell it's being dithered.

Seven: Every single one of you posting in this column are either using TFT or TN screens, unless you happen to have a shiny new 23" plus screen that is true 8 bit (like a cinema diaplay from Apple) and connected using digital cables directly to a DVI or HDMI port.

eight: Apple does disclose in the white papers the specific details of the 20" and 24" screen. Just because the chose NOT to include this fairly irrelevent piece of information in the summary page on Apple.com for the general iMac itself does NOT mean they did not disclose this difference.

last: This lawsuit was filed by lawyers, not a complaining user or purchaser. therefore, this is nothing more than a troll lawsuit.

[Tom]

'extra 1K GB memory chip'

LMFAO! Edward, get back in your box!

[Gordon]

Who gives a Rats arse?

Frankly. If.... IF.... Apple have printed something that just isn't so in their adverts (IE claimed "Millions" when it's "Thousands"), then the purchasers have been misled and deserve their money back. For something as subjective as whether the colours look "Flat" to you - you probably should have "tried before your buyed". At the end of the day, the monitor is still plenty good enough for surfing the net, watching videos etc etc. Which is what the Mac was sold to do.

I know they've been the darlings of people who need accurate colour for some time, but maybe Apple feel they're better off building a machine at a price that suits the mass-market, rather than building an expensive machine to suit one minority?

I know it sucks a fat one, but Apple are changing and moving from provider of specialist computers to a few minority markets to purveyor of mass-market technology to all-and-sundry, and their product focus has shifted to reflect this change in targetted demographic. I'm not sure it will work, to be honest. I think the Wintel PC may have too big a stranglehold. But, if it doesn't, at least they'll have iPod revenue to keep them going (unless they fuck that up, too..)