New 20" iMac Screens Show 98% Fewer Colors 470
Trintech points us to an AppleInsider article about another class-action lawsuit directed against Apple Inc. This one claims that the displays on new 20" iMacs are only capable of 6-bit-per-pixel color, 98% fewer colors than Apple advertises. Rather than the 8-bit, in-plane switching (IPS) screens used in 24" iMacs and earlier 20" models, "[t]he new 20-inch iMac features a 6-bit twisted nematic film (TN) LCD screen," according to the article, "which the [law] firm claims is the 'least expensive of its type,' sporting a narrower viewing angle than the display of the 24-inch model, less color depth, less color accuracy, and greater susceptibility to washout." Apple recently settled a very similar class-action suit about the displays on MacBook and MacBook Pro models.
No April Fools articles this year. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:5, Interesting)
So it's 6 bits per color (red, green, or blue) to achieve 18 bits total (thousands of colors). Versus a "real" monitor that can do 24 bits total, aka millions of colors.
Yeah. Definitely false advertising.
Lousy Apple.
Starting to act like Microscrew.
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:5, Informative)
Technically, you could only define 32 colours of those 64 (from a total palette of 4096!), the other 32 were actually the same colour but at half the brightness, hence the name of the display mode: EHB - Extra Half-Brite. This was very useful since you could use that extra bit-plane as a shadow-plane, and most palettes had dark and bright versions of the colours anyway.
Of course, this doesn't make it any less superior, just saying...
Re: Amiga video modes. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Amiga video modes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, regarding the article, why the heck is Apple of all manufacturers using TN panels, everyone knows they suck! A supply issue perhaps? I know there was a panel factory that went up in flames a while ago, which caused the Lenovo L220X to be severely short in supply.
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:5, Informative)
No offense intended, but I can't believe in this day and age that people who are otherwise generally well-versed in computers and computer peripherals are still not even aware of this specification for LCD screens - which is probably the most important one.
Everybody gets so fixated on response times and viewing angles, but none of that amounts to a hill of beans without color rendition and accuracy. The most important specs to look at on any LCD screen are bits per pixel and gamut. Contrast is also useful to know if you also know black level threshold. Without that, though, contrast ratio is useless because it's much easier to make an LCD screen brighter than it is to make one darker, and LCD screens these days are by and large capable of much more brightness than would ever be usable. A contrast ratio of 10,000:1 is meaningless without knowing the starting point for that range.
Unfortunately, most manufacturers make the specs that are actually important almost impossible to find. Even a lot of manufacturers who could brag about these things - because their screens do all the right things in color rendition and accuracy - choose not to. Dell, for example, is probably the largest manufacturer of 8bpp Super-IPS screens with wide color gamuts. Their higher-end screens, which are still pretty cheap relative to most screens marketed towards professionals, are among the more capable out there. But I have never seen Dell actually try to make this argument - I have never seen them argue that colors on their monitors are more vibrant and true-to-life (to use the marketing-speak that they'd probably go with), even though they could.
The reason is that people don't seem to know or care. And they should. You're looking at a screen in some cases almost every waking hour you have (if you're like me and work on computers, then go home and switch on your laptop), and many people are using them for things like photo editing or home video production. People should be demanding good color rendition.
It's almost shocking that Apple, of all companies, does not provide 8bpp panels across their entire line. At the very least, given their reputation as a manufacturer of computers for creative professionals, they should be making it clear which screens are 8bpp panels and which ones aren't. And they should be publishing their screens' gamut as well.
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:4, Informative)
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I had 2 "identical" HP flat panel displays in my job-befo
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Then you have to explain that apple is using LCD specifications that were outdated in the late 90s. (Sadly, the last 6bit pixel LCD I have even seen was a 1999 Pentium II Laptop.) But hey, Macs rule, right?
So you haven't seen a laptop in eight or nine years? Where have you been? Haven't seen a typical consumer LCD from a no-name brand, or the budget version from a bigger label? You seem to have missed quite a bit in the near-decade you've been away from civilization!
There are no 8-bit notebook panels (with the sole exception of some 17" models), and most TN panels (which make up the lion's share of the market, because they're the cheapest) are 6bpp, too.
But hey, don't let the facts get in the way.
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:4, Interesting)
The 'millions of colours' option means (and has meant ever since the Mac IIfX) that a 24bit pallete is used rather than a 16bit pallete. How many colours the display natively supports is a completely different matter.
The culprit here isn't Apple, it's every consumer that ever bought a cheap display and priced true 24bit displays out of the low and midrange market. On any platform if you use a '32bit' or '24bit' setting, you're more than likely not going to be getting that resolution (or even close to it) on your display, whoever the manufacturer.
Show me any audio interface which claims to be 24bit or 16bit resolution and I'll show you it's actual SNR. 98% is a also misleading, like audio color perception is logarithmic. A 16 bit audio CD has 99.996% less audio thingamyjigs than a 24bit professional audio card, but strangely they sound about the same to the untrained ear. 'Creative' declared and actually measured noise floors have always been miles off (when you look at the number 96dB, it's a misprint, they actually mean 69dB)
Who would have thought that the 'low end' mac would have a 'low end' display in it. Nobody expects any other low and mid-range machine to bundle with a professional display, so why should apple users just because they edit some fotos from time to time.
Apples to apples, not apples to lemur testicles.
Professional graphic artists, photographers, compositors and video editors should rightly demand a full pallete, but then that's what those pricey cinema displays are for.
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(of course, your 24-bit signal has to actually be clean in the first place for this to even matter, which is another issue entirely)
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason why apple got caught with their pants down in their lawsuit is because for decades professional graphic artists and photographers have used and relied on apple.
Despite being marked down as Troll, this is actually quite insightful. It also shows the depth of the mistake Apple has made. The real cost to Apple is not in settling the litigation, but in the trust that will be lost in the professional graphics market. Up till now you could buy a Mac and be confident that you were getting a machine that was suited for graphics work. While most professionals wouldn't settle for the 20", nor an iMac for that matter, this is the most negative publicity, in one of it's core markets, that Apple could have (not) hoped for.
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(just curious)
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Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:4, Informative)
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2 states for each bit (on or off); 6 bits per pixel; 3 subpixels per pixel (red, green, blue)
(2^6)(2^6)(2^6) = 262,144
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Almost like going back to web-safe colors again.
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm almost positive that my Macbook Pro does this as well; honestly, quite unacceptable for a "pro" machine. It's especially noticeable at the brighter edge of a gradient (ex. the Photoshop color palette).
Most people aren't going to really notice. Dithering is reasonably effective, and it still manages to give the illusion of most of the spectrum (certainly far more than 6-bit/64 levels per channel, rather than 8-bit/256). But at the end of the day it's still an illusion, and the difference IS there.
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I am sure that's what they said at Apple. "Those suckers will never figure out what we sold them!" This is just another proof of "corporate honesty" being an oxymoron.
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If you lose just one bit of colour information, you go from 16.7 to 8.4 million colours. I think they must just be rounding or writing it down poorly.
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:5, Interesting)
Each subpixel can display one of 64 values, lets say from 0 to 63. However, each subpixel also can change its value over time. During four consecutive clocks, the sub pixel can have two different values. For example, to produce the values 31 1/4, 31 1/2 and 31 3/4, change the value in a pattern 32-31-31-31, 32-32-31-31, or 32-32-32-31. That way, you achieve 253 different values from 0 to 63 in quarter steps. 16.2 million = 253 * 253 * 253.
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Asus, Viewsonic, Samsung and many others have 2ms LCD monitors out nowadays that should set you in good stead for gaming, and prices are as always dropping rapidly.
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Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:5, Informative)
No, the article just wasn't clear. It actually means 6-bits per color channel per pixel. In other words, 18-bits per pixel instead of full 24-bits per pixel. And the reduction from 2^24 to 2^18 does indeed reduce the number of colors from about 16 million to 262,144 - a reduction of about 98% of the entire color space.
And as someone who owns a 18-bits per pixel monitor, trust me, you can tell when working with static imagery. Maybe not when playing games or playing movies, but you can tell. The little gradients on Slashdot look terrible on that monitor. It helps that it doesn't do any form of dithering, but even on my cheap Acer laptop that also only does 18bpp, you can clearly see the dithering.
Since Apples are frequently used for photo work and print work, using only 6 bits per color channel is simply unacceptable. Coders probably won't care, but graphic artists most certainly will.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:4, Insightful)
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I was confused at first as well until I worked out the common factor in the discrepancy.
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(2^18)/(2^24) = 0.016 2%
Re:No April Fools articles this year. (Score:4, Funny)
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There, fixed that for you.
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There, fixed that for you. Citation needed.
Uh oh (Score:3, Funny)
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If anything... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If anything... (Score:5, Funny)
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If only... (Score:4, Insightful)
But cutting costs is part of innovation, so Apple is still the best, OBVIOUSLY.
Re:If only... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is that most people can't tell the difference, and aren't interested in paying four times as much to get a product that isn't noticably better unless you make your living working with colour.
This is a storm in a teacup.
Re:If only... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If only... (Score:4, Informative)
There is no better laptop screen, because no one makes one. You can increase the resolution by paying extra, but you're still getting the same cheap TN crap that everyone uses and that Apple is getting sued for advertising as capable of displaying "millions of colors."
Crap TN panels are slowly but surely taking over the desktop space too. It's hard to find a non-TN panel under 23" these days, and even many 24" and all 27" panels use the sucky technology.
Unfortunately, Americans still largely drive tech trends, and we rarely care about anything but "big and cheap." (We say we do, but then we actually still buy "big and cheap.")
Re:If only... (Score:4, Informative)
Incidentally a guy (Mac user) on our forums ran some tests on his Thinkpad and found that it does indeed have an IPS display. So although TN screens may be common on laptops they're not ubiquitous.
Re:If only... (Score:5, Informative)
I realize that. I was responding specifically to the inaccuracy in the parent post.
IBM made several ThinkPads with IPS panels 2-4 years ago, although none were produced in large numbers. The 14" and 15" IPS screens are no longer being made. The only one I know of still being sold is the X-series tablet, which has a 1440x900 12" IPS screen that I believe is also now out of production.
TN was just too big and cheap for IPS to survive. There was no money for the panel makers in producing a tiny quantity of $100 more expensive laptop screens for the few buyers with enough basic perceptivity to tell the difference.
Not so much (Score:3, Informative)
Also it is easy to get non-TN panels for desktop displays, you just have to be willing to pay more. For example the LG L1910S is a 19" S-IPS monitor. However, it's going to run you like $350, not the $150 you may be accustomed to for monitors that size. Same deal with larger panels. Yep, you can get 24" TN panels, and you can get them for an extremely good deal. Just
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The majority of Windows PCs are non-specific about the superiority or inferiority of their screens. Dell doesn't lie about it. No fraud, no suit.
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Unfortunately, the vast majority of Windows PCs (including pretty much every laptop ever made) also use these "inferior" screens, and nobody's tried to sue Dell yet.
The majority of Windows PCs are non-specific about the superiority or inferiority of their screens. Dell doesn't lie about it. No fraud, no suit.
I just had to check the specs of Dell's (forgotten?) iMac competitor: the XPS One [dell.com]. From the specs:
Large Size ( 20" )
Widescreen
High Definition: WSXGA (1680x1050) resolution at 16.7 million colors
Hmm... looks like an 8-bit panel.
Fast pixel-response rate (5ms typical for fast motion)
Fuck... that looks like a 6-bit TN panel. I'm assuming a viewing angle of "80 degrees" translates to "160 degrees," which is typical of TN panels. Also, I don't think current 8
How can you judge colour quality? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How can you judge colour quality? (Score:5, Informative)
But seriously, yes, LCD (and any decent LCD mfgr) will spec the color bit depth of a panel. A really good mfgr (NEC, LG, Samsung) will have gamut charts available to OEMs and possibly end users. But if Apple chooses not to share, or worse just lies about it, there's not much you can do other than try to do some independent research to figure out what panels Apple uses, then contact the panel mfgr to (try to) get some specs.
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I got a cheap 19" LCD which clearly has a smaller color space based on watching video simultaneously on the LCD and on a HT projector. The LCD clearly has marked color transitions where the (also LCD) projector does not. At least, I presume that's the issue. I don't really care, as the screen is mainly for setup of the HT computer, not watching, but I can see how somebody might be pretty disappoin
Re:How can you judge colour quality? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:5, Informative)
They are cheaper, and they have faster response times.
8-bit LCD panels are almost a niche specialty 'pro product' in today's market, and unless you went out of your way to buy an 8 bit screen odds are you took home a 6-bit TN panel, advertised as showing "16.2 million colours" without even knowing it.
Its not just Apple. Although they seem to have gone beyond marketing deceptiveness to outright lies and deserve to be taken to task about it.
But don't for a minute think all those free Dell monitors bundled with low end PCs are anything better. Hell, even the ones you can pay to upgrade to aren't often anything better than 6-bit.
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For those interested in looking up the monitors, here [wikipedia.org] is a handy guide that gives you the inside scoop on most of the Dell flat panels. Also why the the 200x, 240x, and 300x series monitors get the loving they do and were wo
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I can't imagine that there are many larger LCD TVs with TN panels, even among the cheap ones; the viewing angles would be unacceptable.
I wish it was that easy (Score:3, Informative)
It also goes the other way too. I am thinking about getting an NEC 2690WUXi which is a pro monitor. It is, of course, an 8-bi
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Class Action? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's what it is, right? They say "millions of colors" when it's really 262k colors. Or is there some precedent that lets a company claim dithering = unique color?
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No, because quality was obvious (Score:2)
It's not like dithering is not used in plenty of other applications to produce more colors than the device can physically output - I assume they are going after printer makers next?
Re:No, because quality was obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
cheap vs. mislabeled (Score:3, Insightful)
18 bits is plenty for many people, but it's not plenty for graphic artists - the very people who buy Macs.
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TN screens are 6-bits per component, alongside a load of other things like poor viewing angles, etc.
They use temporal dithering to achieve 16.2m colours, because they can flick between close together colours very quickly, faster than the human eye can detect. There is another illusion used as wel
Re:Class Action? (Score:5, Informative)
They make the claim that the "display" supports "millions of colors". And by display, they mean something that has 290 cd/m2 brightness and a 160 degree viewing angle -- which could hardly be referring to the GPU/video card.
Can't say I'm surprised. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Can't say I'm surprised. (Score:4, Insightful)
But in the past few years Apple quality has been slipping. They need to nip this in the bud or they'll be known as just an OS company with crappy hardware.
And for a company that pushes such a visual image - DON'T go cheap on the displays!
I know what they're doing (Score:5, Funny)
That's OK (Score:5, Funny)
Macs are for graphics... untrue? (Score:3, Insightful)
Quick Ban-Him (Score:3, Funny)
6-bit colors make gradients look awful. (Score:4, Informative)
6-bit colors? In 2008? What were they thinking? The trend is towards 10 bits. At 6 bits, gradients look awful; false edges appear. Go into Photoshop, generate a single color gradient, and then "posterize" to 64 colors to see what this looks like. Yuck.
Dithering won't help; it puts noise into a nice, smooth gradient.
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That said, you're right that 6-bit makes gradients (and many more things) look like shit. But, to be fair, not 64-color total shit.
The Amiga had 4096 colors (12-bit total, 4 bit per channel) in the 90's. 1024 total colors, now in 2008, on the be
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You won't see stripes, but noisy transitions, at least on the iMac. Most of the 6-bit displays (including the iMac one) dither when they are fed intermediate values.
For me, the difference is most dramatic on relatively dark gradients involving green or blue.
In any case, the worst problem with TN isn't the dithering/banding, it's the total lack of color consistency that derives from the very narrow viewing angle.
Dithering does help (Score:3, Interesting)
You're thinking of spatial dithering. LCD panels can use both spatial dithering and temporal dithering. With temporal dithering on a 6-bit panel, the sub-pixel can only be 64 possible states*, but you flip it rapidly between two states to approximate something in between. This is generally invisible to most people. If you can see older fluorescent lights flicker like I can, you may be able to notice it; but for most people for all intents
All I can say is: It better not have a 9-pins (Score:2)
Apple monitors give o1000000 colors (Score:5, Funny)
6 Bit per pixel. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:6 Bit per pixel. (Score:4, Funny)
Great for the environment (Score:5, Funny)
Wish they line had a decent display-less product (Score:2)
The same as 90%+ of LCDs sold. (Score:5, Insightful)
This would only affect the clueless. It was widely complained about that apple switched to TN panel on the 20" as soon as the Aluminum iMacs came out. It is not a hidden fact, you can tell by the viewing angle specs.
Apple will probably fight this one, because there is a chance the laptops did not have FRC dithering (many laptop screens don't) and thus did not have millions of colors, OTOH the FRC dithering panels are classed as having millions of colors industry wide, and the viewing angles were quoted to industry standards in the spec that would make it clear to anyone who knew or cared about display or even asked anyone for advice that these were TN panels.
In fact you would have to be living under a rock to not know, but that won't stop some people for trying for a small cash grab and lawyers from trying for a big one.
This is not as big of a travesty as it seems (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolute black level.
Off-axis viewing degradation.
The color is actually BETTER, DESPITE the 6 bit panel. The reason why 6 bit is not a big deal is because the panel response is so fast that it can temporally dither two colors into one, and you don't even notice that its doing it. For photography, its actually better color reproduction because its more consistent than CRT. On top of that, the "C" model in particular (as opposed to the 226BW) has a 95 CRI backlight, which means the spectrum the backlight produces is much less peaky and closer to natural sunlight. Altogether, the result is more accurate color than I'd get on a CRT. Plus I get 2ms response time so gaming is fine too.
The 226CW may be TN, but its one of the best panels out there. I thought I was going to be more disappointed than I actually was. In fact, I wasn't disappointed at all because it turned out better in most regards, not just "almost as good." It can produce smooth color because spatial and temporal dithering on fast monitors is surprisingly effective, and its actually more accurate because of the better quality back light.
Not that this was an article about CRT vs LCD, but I'm saying that TN panels have become common not just BECAUSE they're cheap but because the good ones (as cheap as they are) are SURPRISINGLY good. Apple may have used a shitty 6 bit panel instead of, say, Samsung's 6 bit panel, but the number of native colors is surprisingly not that big a deal, even if you're a picture-accuracy freak.
(It doesn't excuse them from not clarifying whether it was TN or IPS though, and in fact it pisses me off that no manufacturers are clear on what overall technology goes into their LCDs)
iPhone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's add eye strain to the list of grievances. (Score:3, Informative)
Yet Steve Jobs does not care about it (Score:5, Funny)
On the other hand, Windows and PCs are the way they are because Bill Gates has asperger syndrome.
Linux is the way it is because Linus Torvalds worked his way through college as a nude model for art students to paint or draw pictures of the human body. That is why Linux is open, totally naked.
Re:Only 766 colours anyway. (Score:5, Informative)
Let's start with, it's multiplicative, not additive. That's 255^3, not 255*3. This is because, as you mentition later, the eye combines all three subpixels into a new color.
If you interpert color as a wavelenght of light as opposed to relative excitment of the three colored cones in your eye, then yes. But no one thinks of that definition. Instead, the obvious usage is 'colors preceived'. Even when you talk about color of a pure wavelength, you can only interpert it as combinations of your three cones.
So, even if one were to concede all your points, these aren't really 1920x1280x24 displays are they then. Because that 1920x1280 resolution has to get shortchanged for the dithering. So you can say that Apple lied about the resolution instead of the color if you like, but it's awful pedantic.
I know people who paid a lot more to get a camera with a Foveon sensor, actually. While I might be unable to notice the quality, they (and their clients) can. And you better believe they would be pissed if they ended up with a Bayer filter instead.
If you want to say that the difference is small, and unnoticible to most people, so that is the optimal thing to make, fine. I respect that, and agree with you. But this is flagrant false advertising. A 1920x1280x24 screen was advertised and not delivered. Bitch about Apple's behavior just like any other major company's.
Re:Only 766 colours anyway. (Score:5, Informative)
Try the following exercise:
1. Find a new 20" iMac (or laptop, or other machine with a crap TN panel). Find a good IPS panel such as the one on a 24" iMac. Put them side by side.
2. Open your favorite image editor.
3. Create a diagonal gradient starting with black and ending with 50% pure blue or green
4. The hard part: tell me with a straight face that you can't see the dithering.
At typical viewing distances, subpixels are small enough to dither with reasonable effectiveness. Full pixels aren't, at least where the color transitions are subtle.
Re:Only 766 colours anyway. (Score:5, Interesting)
(Shameless plug) Rather than creating the image yourself, you can also try The Lagom LCD test pages [lagom.nl] (and try lots of other monitor tests as well).
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Interesting
Parent is correct (Score:3, Insightful)
This in fact is the only way to count the colors if you want to claim that dithering does not count. (Conversely if you do count dithering you could claim that the screen can display an astronomical number of colors, if viewed from so far away that the entire displ
no, mod it down for "wrong". or perhaps "troll". (Score:3, Insightful)
Bringing in the mechanics of color perception is irrelevant, not to mention that the post is using misleading and incorrect terminology (it's nothing to do with "dithering") and that it is conveniently overlooking the fact that the three wavelengths that the cones
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But when the manufacturer sold it to Apple, they probably didn't lie to them about what it was.
If they did, then Apple should turn around and sue them.