Are they? I'm a tech person and I can barely notice it at all. And I don't think I have a single non-tech friend who is even aware of the concept of video refresh rate.
Whenever there's something that doesn't feel smooth about an interface, it's because the app/CPU isn't keeping up.
I've honestly never understood why anyone cares about more than 60hZ for screens, for general interfaces/scrolling.
(Unless it's about video game response time, but that's not about "running smoother".)
So you could make the same argument against high DPI displays, superior peak screen brightness, enormously better contrast ratio, color gamut, etc. Also speaker quality, keyboard quality, trackpad quality, etc.
Where does this argument end? Do you propose we regress to 60hz 1080p displays with brightness, contrast, and viewing angles that are abysmal by modern standards? Or is the claim that the MacBook Air’s current screen is the perfect “sweet spot” beyond which >99% of people can’t tell the difference?
I think the market data alone disproves this pretty conclusively. Clearly a significant enough percentage of the population cares enough about image quality to vote with their wallets so much so that enormous billion dollar hardware industries continue to invest the huge resource required to make any incremental progress in advancing the technology here.
To be fair, I think there’s a strong data to support that most modern laptop DPI is good enough for >99% of people. And you can argue that XDR/HDR (while enormously noticeable - HDR is still nowhere even remotely close to the limits of an average human’s visual dynamic range) is not applicable/useful for coding or other tasks outside of photo/video viewing/editing. But there’s plenty of people who find refresh rate differences extremely noticeable, and I think almost anyone can easily notice large differences in contrast ratio and max brightness in a brightly lit room.
Well, it's about diminishing returns of course.
The point is, 60 hZ vs 120 hZ is a tiny perceptual improvement. Compared to brightness/contrast, for example.
The commenter I was responding to was claiming that refresh rate is a big, obvious point where iPhones are worse than Android even to non-techies. I'm saying it's not. People generally aren't even aware of it.
> I think the market data alone disproves this pretty conclusively.
I'd say it doesn't, because people continue to snap up expensive iPhones with 60 hZ displays...
I'm not arguing against technological progress in general, as you seem to be implying. Just that certain improvements are at the point where they just don't matter to most people.
See this is what confuses me.
If the UI jitter on her phone was "so jarring", it's not because it's 60 Hz. It's because the phone's CPU isn't keeping up.
Like, nobody watches a video filmed at 60 fps and then watches their favorite TV show or a motion picture at 24 fps and says "the jitter was so jarring". And that's at less than half the rate we're even talking about! Similarly, even if you can tell the difference between 60 and 120 Hz, it's not jarring. It's not jittery. It's pretty subtle, honestly. You can notice it if you're paying attention, but you'd never in a million years call it "jarring".
I think a lot of people might be confusing 60 Hz with jittery UX that has nothing to do with the display refresh rate. Just because the display operates at a higher refresh rate doesn't mean the CPU is actually refreshing the interface at that rate. And with certain apps or with whatever happening in the background, it isn't.
Those have motion blur.
> Similarly, even if you can tell the difference between 60 and 120 Hz
I don't know why you're phrasing this so oddly doubtful? Being able to tell the difference between 60hz and 120hz is hardly uncommon. It's quite a large difference, and this is quite well studied.
30hz is still perfectly usable, but you constantly feel as if something is off. Like maybe you have a process running in the background eating all your CPU.
I imagine going from 120hz to 60hz is the same thing. It should be theoretically indistinguishable, but it’s noticeable.
No, it's not. This isn't about dropped frames or micro-stutters caused by the CPU. It's about _motion clarity_.
You can follow the objects moving around on the screen much better, and the perceived motion is much smoother because there is literally twice the information hitting your eyes.
You can make a simple experiment — just change your current monitor to 30hz and move the mouse around.
Does it _feel_ different? Is the motion less smooth?
It's not because your computer is suddenly struggling to hit half of the frames it was hitting before; it's because you have less _motion information_ hitting your eyes (and the increased input lag; but that's a separate conversation).
60->120fps is less noticeable than 30->60fps; but for many, many people it is absolutely very clearly noticable.
> Like, nobody watches a video filmed at 60 fps and then watches their favorite TV show or a motion picture at 24 fps and says "the jitter was so jarring".
People absolutely complain about jitter in 24fps content on high-end displays with fast response times; it is especially noticeable in slow panning shots.
Google "oled 24fps stutter" to see people complaining about this.
It's literally why motion smoothing exists on TVs.
That's bs. You will immediately notice the difference when going from let's say 120 hz down to 60 hz on a fast gaming pc even if you're just dragging windows around. Everything feels jarring to say the least compared to higher refresh rates and it has absolutely nothing to do with the CPU. It's because of the refresh rate.
It's same thing going from 120 hz to 60 hz on a phone while scrolling and swiping.
It's quite interesting though that there are people out there who won't notice the huge difference. But hey, at least they don't have to pay premium for the increase performance of the screen.
There is a well-understood science to both auditory and visual perception, even more concretely so for the visual side. The scientific literature on human perception in both categories is actively used in the engineering of almost every modern (audible/visual) device you use every day (both in hardware design, and software such as the design of lossy compression algorithms). We have very precise scientific understanding of the limits (and individual variation) of human visual and (to a slightly lesser extent) auditory perception and preferences.
Screen refresh rate arguments are starting to have hints of audiophile discussions.
120 Hz won’t make a difference on a TV box, imo, as abysmal state of their UI is far greater of a problem. High refresh rate is nothing when a transition takes seconds and when scroll is jittery even by 60 Hz standards. :(
A computer UI is basically a movie with 0 shutter angle, which looks super jerky at low framerates.
Going 120hz → 60hz: "WTF? Why is it so choppy? Am I accidentally in low battery mode?"
It's similar to going back to non-retina displays after getting used to retina resolution.
From this you may reach enlightenment.
I switch between various refresh rates daily, it’s barely noticeable.
Certainly if they had both side by side they may be able to notice a difference, but in everyday use it makes no real difference to the vast majority of people. Anecdotally even though I do use Android myself, everyone around me still think iPhones look the smoothest (albeit most of them have never even touched a quality phone running android)
no, he didn't say that. he said they comment on the difference between apple and android (their perception). you have to take that as a given.
that "it's because refresh rate" is his hypothesis, so yes argue that, but not by changing his evidence.
But I am quite confident I'd be able to tell 60/120hz with a 100% accuracy within 5s of being able to interact with the device.
Probably under a second on an iPhone, ~2s on a Mac with a built-in display and slightly longer on iPads and bigger displays. Add ~2 extra second if I'm using a mouse instead of a trackpad.
It is _that_ noticeable to me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/10skjxm/promotion_d...
On the other hand, my MacBook has a 120 Hz display and both my iPad Mini and iPhone Mini are 60 Hz, and even though the difference is night and day, I don’t really MIND using them. It’s just not that cool.
Still a nice to have, which Apple recognizes.
I will give you that most people outside of this websites audience will not be able to _tell_ it's because of the refresh rate.
But I am quite confident if you take most of 120hz iPhone users phones out of their hand, turn on low battery mode, most will be immediately able to tell that something _feels_ off.
I actually call BS on your BS.
I don't believe that people are standing with two phones in their hand - an Android and an iPhone - and comparing them the way that people here are suggesting. I don't think I have ever seen anyone do that IRL, and I don't believe anyone actually does it.
People go to the Apple Store to get their iPhone or to some other store to get their Android phone, because they are interested in either platform, and absolutely not thinking about hopping from one to the other based on some imperceptible screen-refresh 'smoothness'.
i think once you get used to 90 or 120 fps, then 60fps will just feel choppy. no need to compare them side by side.
The only claim I made is that if you toggle between 60/120hz on people's devices, they will be able to tell the difference.
Its the same thing about retina vs. the previous resolutions we had put up with. Yes, you don't need them for text, but once you get used to it for text you don't want to go back.
For me 120Hz is noticeable immediately when scrolling, though I also don’t find it important enough to warrant a higher price aside from gaming.
What I find more important is a high pixel density, though on phones that’s less of an issue as with PC screens - I have yet to find one comparable to the ones in current iMacs.
https://www.tomsguide.com/phones/iphones/iphone-17-just-tipp...
Would be nice if the laptops followed suit
Apple has >80% of the total operating profit in the smartphone market. The new entry level phone went up in price $200. Why do you think they do/should care about market share?
They're fixing it on the iPhone 17 because of the above reasons, but it shows how badly their market research teams are doing that they even remotely thought it was acceptable on the 15, let alone the 16.
ah yes, a country famous for capitalist competition
Literally the only people I know with non-iPhones are:
* People who can't afford one
* People who want a folding screen
* People who are conceptually anti-Apple
Apple have over 50% market share in the US, talking about "struggling to obtain new market share" seems bizarre.
It's my impression that Apple really tried to service this market - that last model was probably the iPhone 13 mini. I assume that there just isn't enough demand for smaller phones to justify the effort to develop them.
I was honestly hoping that we'd get a small phone as the iPhone SE 4. But it seems like that's not to be. At least, if the 16e is the closest we'll get to an SE in the near term.
I loved my iPhone 13 mini for the 3-years it was my daily driver. But yeah, the mini line is probably dead.
I have my 12 mini still but it’s showing its age. Probably have to suck it up and get a big phone next upgrade.
A huge factor in this: 87% of US teenagers have iPhones [1] and that's not going to change anytime soon.
[1]: https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-stock-teens-iphone-e5...
I think it's sad that something kids can't control becomes such a social anxiety inducing thing forcing parents into buying something they might not be able to afford.
Luckily where I'm from we don't use the "sms app" to communicate
* People who think a phone is a boring generic device, and it doesn't make sense to prefer any particular brand or pay more than $X.
* People who are used to Android and have better things to do than migrating to another ecosystem.
In the past, the lack of proper dual-SIM iPhones was a common enough reason to prefer Android. But it's less of an issue today, as eSIMs have become mainstream.
This may be partly because I'm not in the US; my impression is that "people who can afford iPhones buy iPhones so if you don't you're impoverished or weird" is much more a thing in the US than in Europe.)
(I also thought "struggling to obtain new market share" was a weird take, and ditto "just look like old and slow phones". I am not disagreeing with that part of what you posted.)
This is a feature that really only matters to the Hacker News crowd, and Apple is very aware of that. They invest their BOM into things the majority of people care about. And they do have the Pro Motion screens for the few that do.
Even I — an engineer - regularly move between my Pro Motion enabled iPhone and my regular 60Hz iPad and while I notice it a little, I really just don’t see why this is the one hill people choose to die on.
It would be no different than arguing about whether we need all three primary colors (red, green, blue) with someone who is colorblind (and unaware of this). Or like arguing whether speakers benefit from being able to reproduce a certain frequency, with someone who is partially or fully deaf at that frequency. And I truly mean no disrespect to anyone with different perception abilities in these or any other domains.
Recognizing that large differences exist here is essential to make sense of the reality - that something that seems completely unimportant or barely noticeable to you, could actually be a hugely obvious and important difference to many others (whether it’s a certain screen refresh rate, the presence of a primary color you cannot perceive but others can, an audio frequency you cannot hear but others can, or otherwise).
> Have never heard anyone in my life that isn’t an engineer comment on Pro Motion. Not even in an accidental sort of “hmmm why does my phone just feel faster” kind of way.
I would also argue the crowd that insists everyone needs Pro Motion is doing exactly what you accuse me of -- assuming their needs and perception must also be everyone else's. When clearly the market has said otherwise, given Apple's success for many, many years with 60Hz screens.
I am not seeing this alleged crowd of people insisting that everyone needs 120hz/ProMotion. This seems to be a red herring.
I am seeing a crowd of people (including myself) saying that we experience 120hz/ProMotion as a huge improvement over 60hz, so much so that we will never buy a product without this ever again (so long as we have the choice).
I furthermore claim that while not everyone is a member of this crowd (obviously), it represents a sufficiently large share of the device-buying population to justify steering billions of dollars of hardware and software industry to support this, which evidently has happened and increasingly continues to happen.
If this crowd were an insignificant minority as you seem to imply, then 120hz displays would be a fad that fades away in all but the most niche markets (e.g. pro gaming), and yet we’re seeing precisely the opposite happen — 120hz displays are growing in popularity by expanding broadly into increasingly non-niche consumer device products everywhere, from laptops to tablets to phones.
> When clearly the market has said otherwise, given Apple's success for many, many years with 60Hz screens.
Arguing that the market doesn’t want/need it now because Apple succeeded without it in the past, is completely absurd — just as nonsensical as trying to argue that computers don’t ever need any more memory because they did just fine with less in the past.
Apple sells Pro Motion displays. If it matters to you, you can buy them. They aren’t refusing to serve this market, they just don’t prioritize it with their lower cost products.
I only ever used Pixels as android phones, so my experience is limited to that.
I'm back to iPhone now tho, so I get a full-day-ish with pro-motion under a normal usage.
Things that never happened.
Lot of reasons to dislike. iPhone but this story isn’t true in the least.
Actual reputational damage is going on because of these poor decisions, I’m not surprised iPhones are struggling to obtain new market share. They just look like old and slow phones to most normal people now, “look how nice and smooth it looks” is such an easy selling point compared to trying to pretend people care about whatever Apple Intelligence is.