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At WWDC in 2017, Apple announced the second generation iPad Pro. The highlight of this product is the new upgraded screen, with the highest refresh rate upgraded from 60Hz to 120Hz. The iPad Pro 2017 became the first Apple high-brush device consumers could buy, and Apple fans would have to wait until the iPhone 13 Pro was released four years later to experience high-brush on the iPhone.

Recently, some overseas explorers posted on X platform that iPad mini 7 will not be equipped with high screen. Earlier news showed that the small size tablet will be announced and sold in the first half of 2024. Users who had been looking forward to the iPad mini 7 must have been unhappy to hear this news.

To this day, high-screen technology, which has long been popular on Android devices, is still a means of distinguishing product positioning and artificially reducing the appeal of low-end products in Apple's hands. Ironically, Apple devices with high-screen screens suffer from the degradation of the experience brought about by this "advanced" technology in some scenes.

All high brush, what's the difference between ProMotion? Apple often uses the English phrase "ProMotion," or adaptive refresh rate, when promoting the high screen selling point. In other words, Apple's screen doesn't refresh at 120Hz, but rather within a range. For example, the refresh rate range of the screen on the iPad Pro is 24Hz-120Hz, and on the iPhone 13 Pro it is 10Hz-120Hz.

The advantage of ProMotion adaptive refresh rates over fixed refresh rates is that you can dynamically adjust the screen refresh rate to different scenarios for a better experience. Like many traditional movie videos, the frame rate is about 24 frames. If the screen refresh rate is synchronized with it, it will naturally bring a better experience and avoid the phenomenon of picture tearing and jamming caused by dislocation of the two. And when the scene of information flow such as microblogging is swiped, the refresh rate is higher, and the experience will be smoother and smoother. Many people who use high-screen phones say that when they return to 60Hz screen devices, they can clearly feel a decline in experience.

(Source: Ray Technology) Apple's high-brush device, the screen has multiple gear refresh rates to cope with different segmentation scenes. Apple's developer documentation shows that the iPhone 13 Pro series has 12 gears: 120Hz (8ms), 80Hz (12ms), 60Hz (16ms), 48Hz (20ms), 40Hz (25ms), 30Hz (33ms), 24Hz (41ms), 20Hz (50ms), 16Hz (62ms), 15Hz (66ms), 12Hz (83ms), and 10Hz (100ms).

The high screen on Android phones appeared much earlier than the iPhone, and the Razer gaming phone released in 2017 was equipped with a 120Hz screen. Of course, high screen originally appeared on mobile phones, the purpose is to bring users a higher frame rate in the game scene, thus forming an advantage in the game experience. With the gradual popularity of high brush on Android, variable refresh technology is also developing.

However, compared with Apple, the variable refresh function on Android is often more rough. For example, some manufacturers 'mobile phones simply divide the refresh rate into 120Hz, 60Hz and 10Hz, which correspond to information flow, common applications, static scenes, switching between different scenes, scene misjudgment of the system, etc., which will bring unpleasant experiences such as stuck and frame drop.

Apple, which has an advantage in system ecology, does better in this respect. Apple has said that high-brushing the iPhone will predict the user's next action in advance through high-sampling technology, such as sliding the gesture bar at the bottom of the screen, the screen refresh rate will quickly increase, allowing users to get a smoother experience when exhaling background, switching applications and other operations. In 2022, Apple also opened up the highest refresh rate of 120Hz to many third-party applications, finally bidding farewell to the animation effect of 60Hz.

The idea is beautiful, the reality is cruel. From the product concept, Xiao Lei thinks that the top-level design of Apple ProMotion technology is more perfect, and the adaptation to third-party applications seems to be better considering the scenarios.

However, in terms of practical experience, Apple's high-brush devices still face a lot of problems. There are many netizens feedback, iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro series have refresh rate lock 80Hz phenomenon, although the hardware itself supports 120Hz, but in most cases, it is difficult to trigger the highest refresh rate, often 80Hz is the ceiling.

(Photo source: Weibo) And Apple "swing knife from the palace" reason, Is not complicated, Is to alleviate fever and battery life problems. In fact, as early as 2020, it was revealed that the iPhone 12 Pro was already testing the high-brush screen. But in the end, the iPhone 12 Pro failed to use the high screen as desired, and the most direct reason was that the heat was uncontrollable. The iPhone 12 series is the first generation of 5G Apple phones, 5G network brought hot, battery life decline problems have been numerous complaints, if forced to high screen, I am afraid the consequences are unthinkable.

The 5G power consumption problem on the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 series has been greatly improved. However, the motherboard and heat dissipation design of Apple mobile phones still have very big defects. Recent generations of iPhones have used internal space to the extreme, but the priority of cooling devices is not high. At a time when Android brands are liquid-cooling, greatly increasing the cooling area, and releasing crazy volume performance, Apple is still clamping SoCs with double-layer motherboards for ten years.

Once the fever problem became serious, Apple would have to pay for its own martial arts, and the operation of cutting the refresh rate would be logical. Thanks to plenty of cooling space, the heat problem caused by high-brush technology on iPad Pro is not so serious. Therefore, iPad Pro usually can enjoy 120Hz full blood experience. However, Xiao Lei interviewed iPad Pro users around him, and they all made it clear that there was a significant decline in the battery life of the high-brush iPad. However, the iPad Pro's battery capacity and battery life are obviously superior to the iPhone, and everything is still acceptable.

(Source: Ray Technology) In general, the general direction of Apple ProMotion technology is problem-free, and refresh rate adaptation can not only improve the experience, but also ensure battery life. However, in the actual use process, the refresh rate is artificially limited, so the technical advantage of high brush is difficult to truly reflect.

Android phones certainly have similar problems, but Android phones generally have better cooling conditions and give users the option of turning on adaptive/smart refresh rates. For those who want to put an end to software misjudgment and fluency priority, it is good to directly turn on the global 120Hz, which is the same as the automatic brightness function pulling the crotch directly to turn on the manual brightness, simple and rude, but it can still solve the problem. Apple, on the other hand, clearly doesn't give users that option.

Apple needs a cooling revolution In the iPhone 15 series released last month, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max use the A17 Pro, which is the first 3nm process chip. However, as soon as the iPhone 15 Pro series was released, it encountered a heat problem, which attracted overwhelming doubts. Apple had to make improvements in subsequent iOS 17 updates.

The iPhone 15 Pro's heating problem is caused by a combination of factors. On the one hand, the power consumption reduction brought by the 3nm process is less than expected, and the peak power of the A17 Pro is higher than that of the previous generation chip; on the other hand, the titanium alloy on the iPhone 15 Pro has lower thermal conductivity and no improvement in thermal design. As can be seen from the disassembly diagram of iFixit, inside the fuselage, there is only a graphite heat dissipation layer covering a limited area, which is also prepared for the wireless charging ring. As for the common VC cooling layer, liquid cooling and other devices on Android, Apple is useless.

(Source: iFixit) On electronic equipment, as long as room temperature superconducting technology is not realized, the chip will inevitably bring heat. The consequences of heat dissipation are that the iPhone camera gets hot for a long time, the screen brightness and frame rate are raised, the frame is dropped after playing a game, the 5G network gets hot and quickly loses power, and the powerful chip can't play its due level. Cutting the 120Hz screen into an 80Hz screen is just one of the consequences of catching the heat.

The iPhone has long been seen as the flagship of the experience, but advanced hardware configurations are also the foundation for building a good experience. Now, poor cooling has become the culprit leading to the deterioration of the iPhone product experience, and Apple urgently needs a self-revolution in cooling technology.

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: Lei Technology (ID: leitech), Author: Lei Technology Digital Group 3C

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