Lawsuit claims Apple deliberately misled customers regarding the notch

[MandoPanda]

20 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

██ █████ ██ ███████

 

[JoostinOnline]

10 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I have received 3rd degree burns from boiling oil splashed over my hand and arm, I know what that can be like. but I serious think someone is bending the truth here a bit to suggest 88C coffee in the lap was cause for nearly dying.

If you can't see how an old lady could almost die from having the bunch of her skin burned off her legs and groin, followed by surgery to graft new skin on and the subsequent 20% drop in body weight, then you are incredibly ignorant.

 

I don't think you've actually looked into the case, but rather want to stick to the "money grab" story you've been told. No point in continuing this discussion.

[NumLock21]

The product page clearly shows having a notch, just not on the ordering page. One would assume, you would always examine a product closely before buying, especially when it's this expensive. it's their problem for buying something without taking a closer look. This lawsuit isn't going anywhere.

 

And here is the phone in the lawsuit from Scribd

[Canada EH]

2 hours ago, Spotty said:

Apple

Yes, everyone hates apple. Slowing down cell phones, now notches.

Android it is!

[Dabombinable]

19 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

oh wow that's not the screen protector cracking ._. buy a cheap case, people

(feels more like a "i broke my phone, let's find more reasons to sue apple" thing ._.)

What's the point of having a thin, light and narrow bezel phone if you need to have it in a case?

[Spotty]

2 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

And here is the phone in the lawsuit from Scribd

It doesn't specify that is the phone belonging to any of the plaintiffs. It might be, and it might not be. There's lots of photographs of different iPhones in there submitted as 'evidence'.

 

Here's the pdf for the court filings from Scribd.
https://www.scribd.com/document/395721345/Apple-Lawsuit

 

If you scroll right down to the bottom, they are demanding Apple recalls every iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR phone sold in the USA and refund the customer.

Quote

(i) cease and desist from continuing to label and advertise the Product with the misleading pixel resolution representations;

(ii) issue an immediate recall on any Product with misleading labels;

(iii) correct, repair, replace or otherwise rectify the defective product; and
(iv) make full restitution to all purchasers throughout the United States of all purchase money obtained from sales thereof.

 

Most of the focus appears to be on the pixel count. In particular due to the rounded corners as well as the notch.

They also go in to detail as to how Apple's display pixels don't use the standard RGB sub pixels to make up a pixel, instead each pixel shares sub pixels with the adjacent pixel. For every 4 pixels, there are 4 green, 2 red, 2 blue sub pixels. (instead of the standard 4G,4R,4B that would make up 4 pixels)

Quote

The Products’ screens omit half of the red and half of the blue subpixels in a display. Therefore, they have half of the advertised number of pixels and two thirds of the advertised number of subpixels. For example, where a traditional screen would have four  pixels (and 12 subpixels, 4 of each primary color), Defendant removes every other red subpixel and every other blue subpixel, resulting in hardware with 8 subpixels (4 green, 2 red, and 2 blue) that is only capable of forming two true pixels (because there are only two red and two blue subpixels, and a true pixel needs at least one red, blue, and green subpixel).

On the Product’s screen, false pixels share fractions of neighboring red and blue subpixels as shown below, with each red and blue subpixel divided into quarters, and each false pixel containing two quarters of blue subpixels and two quarters of red subpixels. Below is an image showing six false pixels, as Defendant defines them:

 

 This means that the Products’ false pixels cannot all freely make any color  because each false pixel is unable to freely use the red and blue subpixels it shares with the adjacent false pixel. For example, if an image requires a blue pixel next to a red pixel, the image will be blurry because those two false pixels share red and blue subpixels. To make a blue pixel, red subpixels must be off and the blue subpixels must be on, whereas to make a red pixel, the red subpixels must be on and the blue subpixels must be off. It is impossible for the two adjacent false pixels to make a display of one red pixel and one blue pixel  because they share subpixels, as shown above.
 

 

And goes on to say...

Quote

 Even though Defendant’s screens could only make one real pixel for every four subpixels, Defendant advertises them as having one pixel for every two subpixels. It
 justifies this by counting red and blue subpixels as “shared” by pixels, splitting the subpixels into quarters between pixels. The shared subpixels are generally not able to simultaneously be the appropriate brightness for all of the false pixels they are shared  between.

 

The problem with the display design used in the latest Apple iPhones is that the red and blue sub pixels are shared with the neighbouring pixels. This means that if you have a grid of pixels, and you want to display something blue in the middle pixel, the adjcacent pixels must also switch their blue sub-pixels on as it is shared with the pixels nearby. This can cause incorrect colours on the neighbouring pixels, and according to the court documents can allegedly result in a blurred appearance on things like text.

 

For those that don't know what a pixel/sub pixel normally looks like on a LCD display...

Spoiler

Each RedGreenBlue stripe work together to make up one block or pixel. If you want the colour red, the green and blue turn off and only the red stripe is showing. If you want the colour blue, the red and green turn off leaving only the blue sub pixel illuminated. And so on... Each pixel has its own dedicated Red, Green, and Blue sub-pixel.

For every 4 pixels, there are 4 green, 4 red, and 4 blue sub pixels. No sub pixels are shared with neighbouring pixels.

[suicidalfranco]

1 hour ago, VegetableStu said:

oh wow that's not the screen protector cracking ._. buy a cheap case, people

what's the point an "oh so premium" metal and glass phone if you have in an ugly, cheap plastic case?

[Bananasplit_00]

they do hide it in all the marketing that i have seen, the posters didnt even have the camera or earpice iirc, but i doubt that is going anywhere. the missing pixels thing might but both of the claims are kinda stupid and most phone manufacturers are also guilty of the things that apple has done here

[NeuesTestament]

To me it’s clearly fraudulent advertisement to conceal the true nature of the product, namely that the ugly notch is in fact there.

 I don’t think companies should get away with that stuff.

[mr moose]

I think all phone manufacturers are intentionally making their phones weaker so they break easier. It's a good way to ensure a phone that should last 5+ years (like my HTC desire in 2008, I only stopped using it because it became naturally obsolete) only last 2 in the hands of the average user.

[LAwLz]

To everyone saying that "people should do research before buying the phone", please keep in mind that Apple successfully sued and won against Samsung based on, among other things, a test where two phones were held up from ~20 meters away and a person was asked to identify which one was which, without being allowed to get closer to them or hold them in their hands.

 

I wonder if Apple would be willing to do a similar test to see if people could see the notch or not.

 

 

 

Anyway, on topic.

I thought it was stupid when I read the title, but after thinking about it a bit more I think there is some legitimacy to this lawsuit. Especially surrounding the resolution claims.

Resolution is not marketed as "X pixels high and Y pixels wide". It's written and marketed as "X number of rows with Y amount of pixels in each". If they don't state that some of the rows do not contain as many pixels as the other rows, then it is false marketing. That the OS renders things internally at a certain resolution doesn't matter. If that was a valid justification then 720p panel TVs could be sold as 4K TVs if they could accept a 4K input signal and downscaled it before showing it.

 

The rounded corners is just another area where some rows of pixels are falsely marketed as having more pixels than they do.

 

 

"Others are doing it too" is not a valid excuse either. That just means more companies are fooling people and an industry wide change needs to occur.

 

As for the notch being hidden, I think there is some legitimacy to that claim if Apple actually did use Photoshop to remove some of it from photos.

I also think the whole "they hid it in photos!" should not be viewed as a sue-able offense in and of itself, but rather more evidence to fuel the "they are misleading people with the resolution specifications" claim.

[Ashleyyyy]

6 hours ago, Canada EH said:

Yes, everyone hates apple.

i don't. lol.

 

6 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

What's the point of having a thin, light and narrow bezel phone if you need to have it in a case?

you don't need to have it in a case if you don't drop it lmao, but with something so expensive unless you have loads of money it's recommended to keep it in a case. 

[Commodus]

This is the definition of a frivolous lawsuit.  It's virtually impossible to see the XS on Apple's site without seeing the notch, no matter how much the wallpaper is designed to deemphasize it.  And if pentile OLED is grounds for a lawsuit... well, let's just bankrupt Samsung right now, because it practically built its modern smartphone business on that technology.

 

These are people playing a legal lottery (particularly the lawyers) in hopes they'll make money off a trivial issue.  We shouldn't act as if this is some noble crusade to right an injustice.

[S w a t s o n]

21 minutes ago, Commodus said:

This is the definition of a frivolous lawsuit.  It's virtually impossible to see the XS on Apple's site without seeing the notch, no matter how much the wallpaper is designed to deemphasize it.  And if pentile OLED is grounds for a lawsuit... well, let's just bankrupt Samsung right now, because it practically built its modern smartphone business on that technology.

 

These are people playing a legal lottery (particularly the lawyers) in hopes they'll make money off a trivial issue.  We shouldn't act as if this is some noble crusade to right an injustice.

Honestly I wish samshit would just use a proper RGB layout but I do have to agree that PenTile is nothing new and is on every phone with a samsung/au optronics AMOLED/OLED screen afaik

[pas008]

4 hours ago, mr moose said:

I think all phone manufacturers are intentionally making their phones weaker so they break easier. It's a good way to ensure a phone that should last 5+ years (like my HTC desire in 2008, I only stopped using it because it became naturally obsolete) only last 2 in the hands of the average user.

when I was going to college a motorola engineer(talking about old big ass half flip phone days/pager days lol) pretty much said they designed the phones to break easy to the class because  drops arent covered as product malfunction which leads to them getting a new one

[mynameisjuan]

2 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

you don't need to have it in a case if you don't drop it lmao

I guess you never heard of the word "accident" 

[Ashleyyyy]

56 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

I guess you never heard of the word "accident" 

i have heard of it. that's why i have my phone in a case, and the general advice is to have it in a case. 

[suits]

They forsure knew what they were doing and were intentionally being deceptive. Where they being criminally deceptive. I don't think so. It's just a part of marketing. It definitely borders on false advertising I believe. 

[Sauron]

13 hours ago, Spotty said:

Do you believe Apple intentionally tried to hide the notch to mislead customers? If phone manufacturers love the notch so much, why do they try to hide it from customers rather than promote it as a feature? (Because everyone hates the notch)

Of course they did. Whether it can be considered more misleading than other things that are commonplace in the marketing material for things like this (dslr shots implied to be from the phone, scripted voice recognition demos, hiding regular bezels with dark wallpapers...) is another matter entirely.

 

I have no sympathy for Apple but honestly, if someone bought the phone thinking it would be without the notch and didn't even check it out in person before dropping at least 860$ on it, they kind of deserve what they got. Maybe next time they'll think twice about buying from that company.

[mr moose]

6 hours ago, pas008 said:

when I was going to college a motorola engineer(talking about old big ass half flip phone days/pager days lol) pretty much said they designed the phones to break easy to the class because  drops arent covered as product malfunction which leads to them getting a new one

I know we are entering a conspirator type discussion here, But I suspected they cared less about physical resilience when they started pushing the screen all the way to the edge and made no effort to reinforce or thicken the body to compensate.  Also when you buy a genuinely rugged phone, unless you buy a stupidly priced CAT like device you don't get a touch screen. 

[pas008]

15 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I know we are entering a conspirator type discussion here, But I suspected they cared less about physical resilience when they started pushing the screen all the way to the edge and made no effort to reinforce or thicken the body to compensate.  Also when you buy a genuinely rugged phone, unless you buy a stupidly priced CAT like device you don't get a touch screen. 

well now days with the screens they really dont have to design to break, they are ez to break

but he stated in not so many other words that they designed that way its not something you forget

 

I still dont understand why modern phones arent shipped with a plain protective case and couple screen protectors and 1 being applied at the least

 

if you dont like it, then buy replacements just like people buy few anyways

but atleast you have something at first, its not like you buy cases same day you receive it

 

 

[ZacoAttaco]

I don't think I can add anything that hasn't been said already. I hated this marketing from the first time I saw it. I saw these images without seeing or hearing the keynote announcement prior and I genuinely thought they had removed the notch. Very shady, nothing more to say.

[Brooksie359]

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

No I am using the fact that it is not life threatening to claim it is not life threatening.  Unless you get some sort of sepsis or bacterial infection that cause complications leading to death, you are not going to die 12 years later because of it (the specific fact you are ignoring), those possible complications would have long resolved by then.   Seriously trying to argue this woman died of burns she received 12 years prior is fucking ludicrous.

I never said she died because of the burns. I said that third degree burns that extensive are life threatening especially for someone who is older. Sever infections are quite common with those types of burns and is why most people need special treatment to fight it. That special treatment is not cheap either which is why she had asked for them to simply pay for those bills. 

[TechyBen]

On 12/17/2018 at 1:42 PM, Commodus said:

This is the definition of a frivolous lawsuit.  It's virtually impossible to see the XS on Apple's site without seeing the notch, no matter how much the wallpaper is designed to deemphasize it.  And if pentile OLED is grounds for a lawsuit... well, let's just bankrupt Samsung right now, because it practically built its modern smartphone business on that technology.

 

These are people playing a legal lottery (particularly the lawyers) in hopes they'll make money off a trivial issue.  We shouldn't act as if this is some noble crusade to right an injustice.

I can show a car with no wheels on a website, and then sell it on the sales page "with wheels". If the product that turns up has no wheels, that is fraud. The phone is shown with a notch, and sold as "this size/pixels" when it is smaller, and has less pixels. The buyer has no way to know if the pixels are taken away by the notch, or extra added on by the "ears" (reverse of the notch ).

 

"1080p wide" would be acceptable and allow for some curvature of the corners "1080p pixels size" would not, as there would not be 1080p pixels (on a theoretical phone, I've not bothered to check what is on Apple's site).

 

This would apply to anyone selling a phone with a notch, if it is not 1080p/1440p and extends the screen to a notch area, but is instead 1080p/1440p and then cuts out a notch, it is IMO false advertising. The same as me selling a "4K TV" then cutting off corners, cutting out a side, and removing a notch to then argue "but I added in speakers to that place" is no defence, it would not be a 4K TV.

 

Same would apply to cut through cameras. Really, Apple, Samsung and anyone else cutting into the display panel needs to get on a rocket and be shot into the sun. XD

[Commodus]

28 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

I can show a car with no wheels on a website, and then sell it on the sales page "with wheels". If the product that turns up has no wheels, that is fraud. The phone is shown with a notch, and sold as "this size/pixels" when it is smaller, and has less pixels. The buyer has no way to know if the pixels are taken away by the notch, or extra added on by the "ears" (reverse of the notch ).

 

"1080p wide" would be acceptable and allow for some curvature of the corners "1080p pixels size" would not, as there would not be 1080p pixels (on a theoretical phone, I've not bothered to check what is on Apple's site).

 

This would apply to anyone selling a phone with a notch, if it is not 1080p/1440p and extends the screen to a notch area, but is instead 1080p/1440p and then cuts out a notch, it is IMO false advertising. The same as me selling a "4K TV" then cutting off corners, cutting out a side, and removing a notch to then argue "but I added in speakers to that place" is no defence, it would not be a 4K TV.

 

Same would apply to cut through cameras. Really, Apple, Samsung and anyone else cutting into the display panel needs to get on a rocket and be shot into the sun. XD

It's still accurate, you know that, right?

 

Apple is describing the resolution length and width, not the total pixel count.  You might not be getting every last pixel possible in that space, but it's still making use of that length and width.

 

Besides, you're definitely taking a very glass-half-empty approach (not that I want to take the glass-half-full approach).  Remember, they're not cutting into the screen area to be cheap -- they're doing so because it lets them offer a larger overall screen and maximize use of that space without also creating a very tall device.  My iPhone XS is only slightly larger than the iPhone 7 it replaced, but the screen is much larger even if you discount the area next to the notch.