What They Say
DPReview (my favourite photography technology site) reports that Apple in the UK has been forced by the ASA (advertising authority) to withdraw a claim that the display goes ‘Far Beyond HDR’ in its marketing materials.
Apple appears to have withdrawn its claim ‘informally’ after there were complaints to the ASA about the fact that the XDR display only covers 99% of DCI-P3, not the 100% that could be said to be needed to cover HDR.
The ASA is also reported to have taken issue with Apple’s claim that its XDR display has a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, but Apple continues to make the claim and believes that testing will show this.
Apple has added a footnote following the sentence, ‘A P3 wide color gamut provides a color palette capable of creating the most vibrant imagery.’ This footnote corresponds to small text at the bottom of the product page, which states, ‘Pro Display XDR supports 99% of the P3 wide color gamut.’ No such footnote currently exists on the product page in the US.
What We Think
Readers from geographies outside of Western Europe, and the UK in particular, may be surprised at this. It’s more than 25 years since I was directly involved with an ASA case (buy me a beer and I’ll tell the story!), but the system is basically that for any claim made, the advertiser should be able to show evidence. Consumers can generate claims if they believe they have been misled. There is no compensation, but companies can be forced to change their marketing. Of course, friends of competitors (or their advertising/PR agencies) are not infrequently the source of such complaints and sometimes there is a big cost to cancel or abort a campaign because of an ASA complaint being upheld. In this case, as the resolution is ‘informal’, it looks as though Apple agreed to make the changes on contact from the ASA rather than going through a formal adjudication process. High profile cases can make the national news.
The Apple display is a great piece of technology (Apple Explains the Pro XDR Monitor) and it would be a shame if its reputation was damaged by careless marketing.
On the question of contrast ratios, when companies first started claiming this kind of contrast ratio for dynamic backlights, we wouldn’t report them as discussions with a couple of firms that made the measuring equipment confirmed that the black levels were so low that they could not reliably measure them. I’m sure that may have changed now, but as Pete wrote just recently (Can a Display Be Too Bright?) real world contrast is never the same as the spec. sheet. (BR)
