 Cult of MacRead Leander Kahney's latest commentary about Apple and Mac News in Wired.com's Cult of Mac Blog, including Mac, Mac Pro, MacBook, iMac, iBook, Mac mini, iPod video, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, iTunes, iPhoto, iPhone, Apple TV, OSX, Steve Jobs, and Macworld. http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/ другие подписчики этой ленты также читают >> |
- MacBook Screen Lawsuit is a Tempest in a Teapot
About 95 percent of quality in a computer is subjective When a machine runs well, people aren't likely to become concerned about the specification of its memory controllers or the speed of its hard disk. But when things are bad,...About 95 percent of quality in a computer is subjective When a machine runs well, people aren't likely to become concerned about the specification of its memory controllers or the speed of its hard disk. But when things are bad, it doesn't matter if the machine is tricked out with the best components in the entire world -- it's a pile of junk.
This is all relevant to the current tempest in a teapot that goes by day as a lawsuit against Apple for "deceptively" using 6-bit LCD screens instead of 8-bit color on its MacBooks and MacBooks Pro. What this essentially means is that Apple advertises its computers as displaying millions of colors (presumably a full 16,777,216) but that they instead show only several hundred thousand (262,244). I am outraged! OUTRAGED!*
Why, just read this shocking quote from the lawsuit!
The reality is that notwithstanding Apple's misrepresentations and suggestions that its MacBook and MacBook Pro display "millions of colors," the displays are only capable of displaying the illusion of millions of colors through the use of a software technique referred to as "dithering," which causes nearby pixels on the display to use slightly varying shades of colors that trick the human eye into perceiving the desired color even though it is not truly that color.
And just imagine, if you sell that same computer to a color-blind person, they see far fewer than even the 262,244 colors you should be seeing! Horrors! And dogs can only see the screens in black and white -- a double-insult!
As several very insightful people have pointed out, virtually no laptop screens capable of displaying millions of colors are on the market. The fact that it's taken people this long to notice really is more indicative of what a non-issue it is. The only people who need such color range are graphics and video professionals, and we can only pray they're not relying on built-in laptop displays for their work!
(In case you're wondering where the figures come from, 6-bit and 8-bit refer to each color channel. That means (2^6)^3 versus (2^8)^3. That's because we're talking about the color-depth for red, green and blue. We're actually talking about 18-bit and 24-bit color. And none of it has anything to do with 64-bit processing)
So, yes, Apple shouldn't lie about it, but neither should other PC makers, and no one should be using laptops exclusively for mission-critical graphic design and color balancing. Can we go home now?
*I am not outraged.
Image and quote via Ars Technica.
Pete Mortensen - Jobs Says Gore Can Be Next President
Never one to pull a punch, Steve Jobs recently told Time Magazine that Al Gore can win the 2008 presidential election if the pro-environmental Apple board member wants to:If he ran, there's no question in my mind that he would...Never one to pull a punch, Steve Jobs recently told Time Magazine that Al Gore can win the 2008 presidential election if the pro-environmental Apple board member wants to:
"If he ran, there's no question in my mind that he would be elected," said Jobs, referring to Gore. "But I think there's a question in his mind, perhaps because the pain of the last election runs a lot deeper than he lets most of us see."
I have to assume that last sentence is humor. No one has ever seen Al Gore express emotion about the election, ever. Any pain at all would be the first anyone has seen. What do you think -- is the world ready for America's first iPresident?
Via MacNN.
Pete Mortensen
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