Apple has quietly included a remarkable feature in the iPhone 13 Pro. That makes all the difference

The iPhone 13 Pro has some cool features that are hard to miss. The camera system, which is literally bigger than ever, is an obvious example. Not only are the lenses and sensors larger, the Pro models now include the ability to take macro photos from a distance of two centimeters using the autofocus of the ultra-wide camera.

Apple has also managed to reduce the battery life of the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max even further, with two and a half hours more on the latter model. Of course, one of the main features, at least for people who pay attention to that sort of thing, is ProMotion.

This means the Pro models get a 120Hz high refresh screen on an iPhone for the first time. Previously, this technology was reserved for the high-end iPad Pro. That the Pro models now have ProMotion is a big deal, but it’s not as important as how Apple added it to the iPhone 13 Pro. It turns out that ProMotion has a lot to do with this improvement in battery life.

That’s because the best thing about a ProMotion display isn’t just that you get high refresh rates. It’s that your iPhone dynamically changes the refresh rate based on what’s going on.

Now Android phones have had 120Hz displays for quite some time, and some of them are able to switch between, say, 60Hz and 120Hz depending on what’s happening on the screen. This in itself is not entirely new.

It takes a lot of energy to light up and refresh this display, so the less you have to redraw what you’re looking at, the better. Other devices with high refresh rates may adjust depending on what is displayed on the screen. For example, if you are watching a movie shot at 24 frames per second, the display may refresh at 24 or 48 Hz. If you are playing a game, it may refresh at 120 Hz. The refresh rate is primarily determined by the application.

On the iPhone that’s still true, but Apple has gone a step further by quietly including a remarkable way to decide which refresh rate to use. Your iPhone 13 Pro or 13 Pro Max literally measures the speed of your finger across the screen and then adjusts the screen refresh rate.

So if you use Twitter and read a tweet, the iPhone 13 Pro goes down to 10Hz. If you start scrolling slowly, it may choose a faster refresh rate, say 60Hz. If you scroll quickly, it can go up to 90Hz or 120Hz. Apple isn’t saying exactly how many different refresh rates the screen uses, only that it designed the system to match the refresh rate to the speed of your finger.

The reason I think it’s so remarkable is that Apple has made efforts that other companies won’t in order to provide a real advantage that these other companies don’t. Instead of just changing the refresh rate based on the app you are using, it changes depending on how you are using the app.

Of course, that meant extra work for Apple. He had to put in the effort to create a system that would detect the speed of your finger’s interaction, and then put that into ProMotion. The point of going the extra mile here is for the display to always use the most efficient refresh rate based on what’s happening on the screen and how you interact with the device. This means it uses less power and improves battery life.

There are two things that most people care about when they buy a new iPhone. How good are the cameras and how long will the battery last me? Smartphones have little space inside to cram all the components. That’s why the camera bump on this year’s pro models has grown larger to make room for larger sensors, longer focal lengths, and faster apertures.

When it comes to battery life, there is little room for more battery cells inside. This means that you have to make your device more efficient. Since the A15 processor inside has the same 5-nanometer transistor size as the previous model, there’s little efficiency you can squeeze out.