A lawsuit has been filed and is seeking class action status against Apple alleging misleading marketing and false claims of the MacBook and MacBook Pro. Apple notes that its laptop color displays can show millions of colors, but the suit claims the LCD panels show color at only 6 bits of depth per RGB element, for a total of only 260,000 colors. Finely detailed dithering at the sub-pixel level tricks the eyes into perceiving millions of colors, as would be seen in a true-color 8-bit display.
According to the filed court papers, Apple advertised that the MacBook and MacBook Pro would display millions of colors. When in fact they are only capable of displaying the illusion of millions of colors through dithering. The case was filed in the Superior Court of San Diego and claims the dithering problems cause noticeable banding in photographs and applications which display continuous gradations of colors. The suit alleges numerous MacBook owners have described the displays as "grainy" or "sparkly," so Apple knows about the problems, yet has done nothing about it.
