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All iPhone 15 Models Support DisplayPort for Up to 4K HDR Video Output to External Display

IG88 said:
No. Because then you wouldn't need an iPad / MacBook.

Apple are not going to let the iPhone cannibalize those sales.
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But that's not the point. By that logic Apple would still be selling the iPod.

If the market moved toward phones as desktops, Apple would be forced to cannibalise sales anyway. I can still envision iPads selling in that world, and real desktop computers for high-end workloads, but an iPhone with a dock could probably handle everything else within a few years.
 
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dpfenninger said:
For the base 15 & 15 Plus, how can a 4K/60 display be supported on a USB-C port that is limited to USB 2 speeds?
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The USB Type-C connector allows for up to four high-speed differential pairs, which can be allocated to different protocols. For example, you could implement 5Gbps or 10Gbps SuperSpeed USB using two of the pairs and use the other two for dual-lane DisplayPort. Alternatively, you could have all four pairs used for quad-lane DisplayPort to drive high-resolution or high refresh rate displays.

Notably, there are dedicated USB 2.0 data lines on the USB Type-C connector that are always available, no matter the configuration of the high-speed differential pairs.

So in this case Apple just had to connect their existing USB 2.0 interface to those dedicated pins and run the new DisplayPort interface to the high-speed differential pairs.
For the 15 Pro models, it may actually more complicated since they might need to add multiplexers to switch the differential pair lines between the SuperSpeed interface and the DisplayPort interface as appropriate.

This picture shows the USB Type-C pinout. The blue TX and RX pins are the high-speed differential pairs, and the green D+/D- pins are the USB 2.0 lines.
Fig1m11292018.png
 
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Now I have to wonder the extent of just how fully "USB" the USB-C port on the iPhone is. The lightning port was fairly limited in what it could do, even with the lightning to USB adapter.

For example, will you be able to plug most thumbdrives into the new phones? With the lightning to USB adapter the phone complains that nearly all thumbdrives use "too much power." The few that did work didn't work too well or would be unreliable.

What about a USB-C to ethernet adapter? I could see that being useful sometimes. Or one of the many hundreds of USB-C to audio interfaces out there?

I'm really looking forward to learning the capabilities of the port on the new phones!

EDIT: Also it would be nice if the new displayport support really is native. The current lightning display adapters actually have the phone compress the video, then the adapter decompresses it because USB 2.0 doesn't have enough bandwidth for the signal otherwise. You will occasionally see compression artifacts when an iPhone is driving an external display! It's such a kludge and why the adapter is so pricey.
 
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fwmireault said:
As long as there is no proper external display and multitasking support on iOS, the experience will be quite poor and limited. But the hardware definitely could provide a iPad-like experience with a few software tweaks. I hope Apple will pursue this direction
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The experience is not so that you can multitask of even run anything other than movies and videos on the a tv, maybe play a game with an external controller but even that seems like not the intended use.
 
emoore33 said:
The A16 chip only supported USB 2 speeds with lightning. Why would they redesign the A16 to support a higher speed? Next years the regular iPhone 16 will support USB 3 speed since it will use the A17 chip.
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A14 in the 4th Gen iPad Air supports USB 3.0. So I’m sure the A15 and A16 have usb 3.0 controllers.

EDIT: to be fair, 4th gen Air used a Fresco Logic USB 3.0 controller. So it’s likely the A14 didn’t have one.
 
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mectojic said:
But that's not the point. By that logic Apple would still be selling the iPod.
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No. They wanted the phone to be revolutionary from day 1. Keeping music off would have been insane.

And as history showed, the iPod didn't really need to exist anymore once the iPhone came out. The iPhone ate the iPod.

it's not insane to prevent the iPhone from being used as a desktop. It's not a killer or common enough Android feature for Apple to lose sleep over.
 
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Channan said:
The capability is here now for Stage Manager on the iPhone. It would be awesome to plug an iPhone into a monitor and connect a mouse and keyboard to use it like an iOS desktop. Apple would probably lose a lot of iPad and Mac sales which is why I’m sure we don’t have this now, but hopefully we get it in the near future.
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When they finally release it I will upgrade from my 14 Pro. Currently I decided not to upgrade.
 
fwmireault said:
As long as there is no proper external display and multitasking support on iOS, the experience will be quite poor and limited. But the hardware definitely could provide a iPad-like experience with a few software tweaks. I hope Apple will pursue this direction
Click to expand...
Problem is iPadOS=/=iOS, including the app installed on iPhone.
 
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IG88 said:
Well, I guess I should have asked why anyone would believe the A16 was only capable of USB 2.0 speed.
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This may have had nothing to do with it, but the iPad Pros that have USB 3.0 speeds with lightning both have the ‘X’ variant of the chips (A9X, A10X). Perhaps something was added to those to enable it.
 
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Needleroozer said:
For the 15 Pro models, it may actually more complicated since they might need to add multiplexers to switch the differential pair lines between the SuperSpeed interface and the DisplayPort interface as appropriate.
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I think that is exactly right.

That's why DisplayPort 5K (in the DP spec) has to drop simultaneous USB down to USB 2.0 speed. They can't pass 5K and USB 3.1 over those same 4 channels.
 
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Channan said:
The capability is here now for Stage Manager on the iPhone. It would be awesome to plug an iPhone into a monitor and connect a mouse and keyboard to use it like an iOS desktop. Apple would probably lose a lot of iPad and Mac sales which is why I’m sure we don’t have this now, but hopefully we get it in the near future.
Click to expand...
Mother nature would be very pleased with that, but I guess Father Fortune would be very upset as it will eat iPad/Mac sales.
 
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I wish iPhone 15 Pro will support external display similar to iPad Pro M1 with iPad OS.

I was looking forward to iPhone 15 pro with thunderbolt port to connect to Studio Display. ( Similar to Samsung Dex), But I guess we are not lucky this year.
 
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gaximus said:
The experience is not so that you can multitask of even run anything other than movies and videos on the a tv, maybe play a game with an external controller but even that seems like not the intended use.
Click to expand...

guys, should it be possible to play the division and RE 4 on my 4k tv with real-time ray tracing using my ps5 controller? can i replace my steam deck with it?
 
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