It sounds like you're disagreeing, but GP is right per https://support.apple.com/en-us/112313

> 15-inch (viewable) TFT active-matrix LCD, 1024 by 768 pixels, millions of colors

I'm not super familiar with macs, but AFAICT that's the product being described here.

The "millions of colors" was a part of a lawsuit by some photographers who found out it wasn't actually millions.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/08/03/26/apple_settles_mil...

Ah! Okay, that explains the dissonance.

It's most definitely a LM171W02 panel in the iMac G4 which is definitely a 6-bit panel, you can see the specs here: https://www.panelook.com/modelsearch.php?keyword=LM171W02&se... all of the LM171W02 panel family are 6-bit (notice the colors column lists 262k)

Edit: I see you linked to the entire G4 lineup specs. The 15" is a LM151X2 and also has only 262k colors: https://www.panelook.com/modelsearch.php?keyword=LM151X2&sea...

but the 20" is a LM201U04 with an IPS panel that could display millions of colors with 8 bits per channel https://www.panelook.com/modelsearch.php?keyword=LM201U04&se...

so we can assume that Apple is simply using dithering to count as "millions of colors" on the lower models

Okay fair enough, but then... did Apple just straight up lie about the specs?

I wouldn't say they lied so much as they obfuscated the truth; the machine supported millions of colors, and with dithering techniques the monitor could look like it was displaying quite a lot of colors, but only the 20" display could display millions of colors without dithering (which was just like basically every other TN-based machine and display of the time)

Thank you for the clarification.