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

[Macalicious2011]

All of 3 people are going to use this usb-c feature.

Meanwhile: Apple TV.

Wrong.

It will be very useful for vlogging and content creation. You can have the iphone cameras facing you whilst the phone is plugged into your monitor for use as a view finder. This will allow you to record whilst having visibility that:

-You are in the frame
-The screen is not smudgy
-The phone is recording

 

[Will Co]

This. At least some part of the value prob is clear too - take less stuff with you, travel lighter. It doesn't even need to be "perfect", it just needs to be good enough.

I’m with you - it’s heading in an interesting and potentially useful direction. However, if I needed to carry a small keyboard with me to make my iPhone useable for tapping in meeting notes etc, then I might as well just take an iPad, space-wise. Then I get the pencil support too. Still, that’s another thing the phone already ought to support…..

 

[Macalicious2011]

Glad to hear Apple is using one of many features that USB-C offers. I can absolutely see stage manager coming to iOS and that the iPhone will offer what many Androids are doing today, a full desktop experience once docked.

This is exciting stuff, imagine just taking your phone to work and docking it in and being able to continue to work.
Microsoft/Nokia offered this with Windows Phone, Android offeres it and I can only hope Apple packages this into a useful solution.

Have been using stage manager and iPad for a while in a docked solution there is some work that's needed before its working propery. Its getting there but needs better mouse support and a bit of polishing to work.

Yupp. Imagine only owning an iPhone Pro Max. Use it as a phone, tablet and casual computer. Perfect for developing markets where many can only afford to own a single device.

 

[Macalicious2011]

I’m with you - it’s heading in an interesting and potentially useful direction. However, if I needed to carry a small keyboard with me to make my iPhone useable for tapping in meeting notes etc, then I might as well just take an iPad, space-wise. Then I get the pencil support too. Still, that’s another thing the phone already ought to support…..

There are foldable blue toothkeyboards with track pads

 

[duanyudev]

That awkward moment when the A16 Bionic has a displayport controller connected to it that can do 8.64Gbps to do 4k 30Hz HDR but only a 480Mbps USB 2 controller.

Doesn’t the iPad mini with A15 has both displayport and USB 3 capabilities?

 

[RamGuy]

Ok, serious question: is it becoming possible to use the iPhone Pro as a sort of desktop computer?

Think about it: A17 Pro chip, 8GB Ram, up to 1TB storage, USB 3 speeds... hook it up to a 4k display, with a USB-C hub you could also use a wired keyboard + mouse while charging the device.

I've been dreaming of the 1-device-for-everything solution for a while. I think specs-wise, we're almost there. The only thing we'd still need would be support for custom display resolutions, and better mouse support.

Samsung has tried this for years. You have to struggle with issues when using a phone as your "single device". What happens if someone calls you while your phone is docked? Unless you have headphones + a microphone, and perhaps a webcam connected, you might not have the devices required to answer calls. Thus, you have to disconnect your phone.

iOS as an operating system is not designed to serve this purpose. iPadOS is slowly moving in this direction with stage manager, etc. But you still have to deal with the fact that apps are designed and optimised for a 3:2 aspect ratio. Another issue will be your phone's battery. Connected to a dock most of the time will cause a lot of strain on the battery.

Perhaps the biggest issue is how a "single device" does not benefit Apple. Apple doesn't benefit at all if customers can replace their iPads and Macs using an iPhone. This is the most likely explanation as to why iPads still don't have multi-user capability. It makes no sense for iPadOS not to have it. However, it wouldn't benefit Apple as most families could start sharing one iPad instead of purchasing multiple.

 

[johnnytravels]

Approved.
I love this calm before the storm time between keynote and Friday’s pre-order opening. Where features slowly trickle out, things begin to take greater shape, make a little more sense. lrefect example of the sum being greater than its parts unfolding.

You got it backwards, with new iPhones it’s generally now that some parts are greater than the sum.

 

[zenotds]

I'm pretty positive you'll still get a black screen when hooking up streaming apps to a television, so this kind of completely defeats half of the utility of having 4k60 output. maybe for games.. but it's been ages since I actually gamed on a phone. What else you would use it for...

 

[blazerunner]

That awkward moment when the A16 Bionic has a displayport controller connected to it that can do 8.64Gbps to do 4k 30Hz HDR but only a 480Mbps USB 2 controller.

It's deliberate; Apple's a 3 trillion dollar company. They could have easily given consumers the actual bare minimum USB 3.0 speeds (5gbps) but instead, in typically slimy Apple fashion, they're complying with EU regulations by kicking and screaming and giving YOU the consumer the finger. Steve Jobs would have done the same, the guy was a scumbag.

But, to be fair, Apple consumers/apologists won't know the difference anyway LOL.

 

[match14]

I mean that’s cool and all, but is it still going to have black screen issues on streaming apps? That’s been an issue with the lightning adapter for awhile now.

Yes quite a few apps would state airplay not available when using the lightning to hdmi adapter. I found that if you had downloaded the apps content when that’s when it happened but streaming content seemed to be ok.

 

[AlexESP]

There are already people using stage manager with an iPad, external monitor, keyboard and trackpad. The feature has already shipped in the real world on iPad OS. Bringing it over to iOS isn’t a big leap.

I already mentioned that point: the Stage Manager interface is native to the iPad. Implementing a totally different interface when you connect an external display is a big problem. And few people find use cases where it’s useful to connect a tablet to an external display, so imagine what would happen with a phone.

 

[Macalicious2011]

I'm pretty positive you'll still get a black screen when hooking up streaming apps to a television, so this kind of completely defeats half of the utility of having 4k60 output. maybe for games.. but it's been ages since I actually gamed on a phone. What else you would use it for...

COD and Genshin impact are examples are very good mobile games. I played them using my Xbox controller and the experience is fantastic and console-like. Connecting to a screen would be fun for casual gamers.

 

[videosoul]

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?

Exactly my thought. Have they artificially capped it for data transfer, but given it full power for DisplayPort?

 

[locust76]

I mean that’s cool and all, but is it still going to have black screen issues on streaming apps? That’s been an issue with the lightning adapter for awhile now.

Probably not. The lightning adapter used a compression codec to compress a video stream and send it via USB 2.0 out to an adapter that decompressed it and sent it out via HDMI/DP/Whatever.

The USB-C spec allows for actual DisplayPort to be added on next to (and independent from) USB 2.0, so as far as I understand it, it will be straight-up uncompressed DisplayPort out of the port, complete with HDCP and everything, so the streaming app can just output video to the USB-C Port as if it were an HDCP compliant display on the other end.

 

[locust76]

Exactly my thought. Have they artificially capped it for data transfer, but given it full power for DisplayPort?

No, the A16 has a USB 2.0 controller that's connected to the USB portion of the USB-C connector. USB-C offers the ability, however, to connect DisplayPort to it, independent of USB, so the iPhone 15 can output DisplayPort with a USB 2.0 controller without any "artificial capping"

 

[Dom_]

Ok, serious question: is it becoming possible to use the iPhone Pro as a sort of desktop computer?

Think about it: A17 Pro chip, 8GB Ram, up to 1TB storage, USB 3 speeds... hook it up to a 4k display, with a USB-C hub you could also use a wired keyboard + mouse while charging the device.

I've been dreaming of the 1-device-for-everything solution for a while. I think specs-wise, we're almost there. The only thing we'd still need would be support for custom display resolutions, and better mouse support.

You also need a company willing to sell you less devices than currently to do all your tasks.

 

[CarlJ]

Granted, it is still a dick move by Apple. The spec clearly supports simultaneous USB 3.1 with DP 4K@60. Apple is just deliberately deprecating down to USB 2.0 bc they want you to buy the Pro.

Or because they only have USB2 capabilities in hardware on the A16, because it was designed for Lightning, while the A17 was designed with USB-C in mind, and has faster USB support. If that's the case, putting USB3 in the iPhone 15 would have required adding an extra chip just to do USB3.

 

[kiranmk2]

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.

The difference is that with the iPod to iPhone transition, Apple were killing a $200-300 device and replacing it with a new product line of $600-700 device - i.e. increased revenues. In this case they would be taking two existing product lines and replacing a $800-1200 device and a $1k+ device with a single $800-1200 device - i.e. massively decreasing revenues.

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.

This is how you’ll play your AAA games on your phones lads. This adapter, along with a xbox/ps5/backbone controller effectively turns your iPhone into the ultimate Nintendo Switch.

As I mentioned in the other thread, this has great potential for iPhones/iPads using an A17/M3 chip to become Switch-like devices. The GPUs have the grunt to drive 1440p (~the same number of pixels as the iPhone Max display) - possibly using MetalFX upscaling and apparently with ray-tracing so imagine playing RE Village on the go and then docking the phone, picking up a paired PS4 controller and picking up on your gaming monitor or TV. It would not surprise me if the M3 iPad Pro is knocking at the power levels of XBox Series S (which also has a 1440p output). In a couple of years when the A17/M3 chip have percolated through the line-up there will be such a large install base it might actually start to appeal to developers. Port your game to Apple Silicon (helped by the porting toolkit) and have access to the Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV install base as potential customers.

 

[Reverend Benny]

Samsung has tried this for years. You have to struggle with issues when using a phone as your "single device". What happens if someone calls you while your phone is docked? Unless you have headphones + a microphone, and perhaps a webcam connected, you might not have the devices required to answer calls. Thus, you have to disconnect your phone.

iOS as an operating system is not designed to serve this purpose. iPadOS is slowly moving in this direction with stage manager, etc. But you still have to deal with the fact that apps are designed and optimised for a 3:2 aspect ratio. Another issue will be your phone's battery. Connected to a dock most of the time will cause a lot of strain on the battery.

Perhaps the biggest issue is how a "single device" does not benefit Apple. Apple doesn't benefit at all if customers can replace their iPads and Macs using an iPhone. This is the most likely explanation as to why iPads still don't have multi-user capability. It makes no sense for iPadOS not to have it. However, it wouldn't benefit Apple as most families could start sharing one iPad instead of purchasing multiple.

Looking from it from a corporate perspective I think this is great.

As an office worker I take nearly no calls other than when using MS Teams and that's usually taken with my laptop anyway.
A dock normally has power connected to it, so it will be powered when its docked.
A single device might play Apple well, in my office most have Windows Laptops and some has an additional device such as an ipad. On top of that we all have phones, either samsung or iphones.

I can absolutely see the problem with the apps not being designed for regular screens, that issue applies to iPad today when using it in a docked mode. Its works "alright" but is still not as fluent as with a laptop.
Also the phone many times work as a backup when the laptop failes or vice versa, moving from many devices to one could be a struggle when one device acts up.

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

will be interesting to see how it's implemented. Is it just purely mirroring? It would be nice if you could select video to play on the tv, via still being able to use the phone for other things.

Bet it's gonna be like previous ipad implementation, aka 19.5:9 ratio with jist mirror on the middle

Don't think we'll get mouse or keyboard suppoet

 

[hovscorpion12]

While I imagine it won't be a copy of Samsung Dex. Calls and texts appear right on your monitor.

Since this feature is simply mirroring your iPhone's display, phone calls will take up the entire screen.

The use cases for this feature would be either doing a quick Excell spreadsheet, Word document and doing content creation.

Unlike the iPad Pro, I not sure how long/fast it takes for Apple to swap out the USB3 for TB4.

 

[hovscorpion12]

Bet it's going to be like previous iPad implementation, aka 19.5:9 ratio with just mirror on the middle.

Don't think we'll get mouse or keyboard support.

iOS does have Mouse and Keyboard support. Not that many people talk about it.

Looks and functions exactly like iPadOS.

 

[k1121j]

will be interesting to see how it's implemented. Is it just purely mirroring? It would be nice if you could select video to play on the tv, via still being able to use the phone for other things.

Yep the delay is horrible currently

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

iOS does have Mouse and Keyboard support. Not that many people talk about it.

Looks and functions exactly like iPadOS.

Thanks for educating me !! Good to see that damn thanks

 

[istanbul]

Ok, serious question: is it becoming possible to use the iPhone Pro as a sort of desktop computer?

Think about it: A17 Pro chip, 8GB Ram, up to 1TB storage, USB 3 speeds... hook it up to a 4k display, with a USB-C hub you could also use a wired keyboard + mouse while charging the device.

I've been dreaming of the 1-device-for-everything solution for a while. I think specs-wise, we're almost there. The only thing we'd still need would be support for custom display resolutions, and better mouse support.

You could use Samsung Dex tho 🤷🏻‍♂️