The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has published an Apple patent that describes an iPhone display that supports variable refresh rates, reports Patently Apple.
If you don’t know, the refresh rate is when the display is refreshed every second, and when the rate is higher, the smoother the display is. Regular smartphones always had a 60Hz display but in recent years, competitors began to upgrade the displays of their smartphones, including Samsung, OnePlus, Asus ROG, and more.
But Apple has been behind, the latest iPhone 12’s don’t have a 90Hz or 120Hz display despite many rumors stated that they will, only iPad Pro models have ProMotion technology ”“Â that houses the refresh rate display ”“Â but now it looks like Cupertino is joining the refresh rate party and this new patent is the latest hint.
The patent shows that the refresh display might be updated two, three, or four times and that the iPhone display could be increased from 60Hz to 120Hz, 180Hz, and even 240Hz automatically. This is 2x more than most iPhone competitors that support up to 120Hz, potentially making the next iPhone’s display much smoother by a large margin.
The lack of a ProMotion display on Apple’s latest iPhone 12 phones is likely to Apple’s careful consideration for performance or battery life, but Apple is rumored to change the iPhone 13 display to a low-power LPTO display which could clear the path for Apple to add the feature to the next iPhones.