Apple Says Third-Party Apps Can Take Full Advantage of ProMotion With Plist Entry, Core Animation Bug Fix Coming [Updated]

[MacRumors]

After developers discovered that their apps are not currently able to use 120Hz ProMotion refresh rates for all animations, there was confusion over whether it was a limitation imposed for battery life or a bug. Apple has now provided clarification.

Apple told MacRumors that all third-party apps can take full advantage of 120Hz ProMotion refresh rates, but developers will need to declare that their apps use higher frame rates by adding an entry to their app's plist. Documentation on the required plist entry will be made available to developers soon.

Apple is requiring this opt-in step to provide higher fresh rates only to apps that will benefit from the technology, which will optimize battery life on iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max devices.

It's worth noting that this opt-in process is designed for apps that need full ProMotion support. Standard UI animations in all third-party apps automatically get the benefits of the the higher and lower frame rates available with ProMotion without developers having to change anything.

There is also a bug that is affecting some animations built using Core Animation that Apple says will be fixed in an upcoming software update.

As developers have discovered, standard UI animations within third-party apps work with ProMotion display technology automatically, and that's true for all apps. Apps that will be able to benefit from the faster frame rates will be able to add that support and will be on par with Apple's own apps.

At the current time, with support limited to standard animations, there can be a noticeable difference between an interaction like scrolling and another interaction like closing a popup. If you're scrolling through Twitter on an iPhone 13 Pro or Pro Max, for example, you'll see the smooth scrolling experience, but the animations that have not yet been updated to 120Hz are limited to 60Hz, and these animations are noticeably less smooth. This problem will be ironed out as developers adopt full support for the ProMotion feature in the future.

ProMotion display technology is designed to provide an adaptive refresh rate ranging from 10Hz to 120Hz. The iPhone's refresh rate shifts based on what's on the screen in order to preserve battery life, as the 120Hz refresh rate eats up battery quicker. If you're looking at a static page on the web for example, the refresh rate will slow down, but it will speed back up as you scroll. ProMotion functionality is available on the iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, and iPad Pro models.

Update: Apple has shared documentation that explains how developers can fully enable faster ProMotion refresh rates for their apps on iPhone 13 Pro models. Specifically, the documentation provides a key that developers can add to an app's Info.plist file to enable the full range of refresh rates for custom animations.

Article Link: Apple Says Third-Party Apps Can Take Full Advantage of ProMotion With Plist Entry, Core Animation Bug Fix Coming [Updated]

 

[dominiongamma]

Okay people were freaking out, issue is settle now that’s it’s up to the developers

 

[DHagan4755]

Ooops! Minor detail missed. But! It will be fixed. After picking up my iPhone 13 this afternoon, I wondered just how much work goes into these products that we have absolutely no idea about.

 

[Mosi]

Glad to see Apple being proactive on this but you would think this is something they could and should have relayed to Developers once they started accepting iOS 15 apps last week.

 

[ss2cire]

Neat, glad that Apple actually allows 3rd party apps to take advantage of the new display, and a plist entry makes it simple.

 

[Nermal]

There are bound to be apps that blindly assume 60 Hz, which would break if it suddenly changed to 120. Making it opt-in works around that issue, although it would've been nice to provide the details to developers in advance.

 

[Moonlight]

For a good laugh, go check out the previous post about this and its comments where everyone freaks out or bashes Apple before they know the facts.

 

[OneMike]

Good that they can take advantage and a fix is also coming

 

[Enygmatic]

So, you mean… this wasn’t some nefarious scheme by ol’ Prayer Hands Tim, cackling in the wind as users were relegated to the unmitigated and “literally unusable” hellscape of sub-120Hz refresh rates? Because the comments earlier SWORE…

 

[ThisBougieLife]

I knew it was a bug.

Like I said. When Apple comes up with a name for a technology, "Retina", "TouchID", "TrueTone", "ProMotion", it means it works the same way on all devices. It wouldn't make sense for "ProMotion" to work differently on the iPad Pro than on the iPhone.

 

[cmaier]

I knew it was a bug.

Like I said. When Apple comes up with a name for a technology, "Retina", "TouchID", "TrueTone", "ProMotion", it means it works the same way on all devices. It wouldn't make sense for "ProMotion" to work differently on the iPad Pro than on the iPhone.

It’s not even a bug.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

It’s not even a bug.

Well, the article does acknowledge a bug affecting animations built using Core Animation.

 

[grennis]

So all the battery life reviews we have seen had 120hz disabled most of the time? How convenient.

 

[Klae17]

so being overly dramatic was for nothing?! Thanks Tim Apple!

 

[mi7chy]

Should've been ironed out at launch and not sometime in the future post launch like the memory restriction on iPadOS on iPad Pro M1. Imagine if Nvidia launched a new GPU where you don't get 100% usability until months later.

 

[Shirasaki]

Ok. As anticipated, a timing response.
Though I wonder what would happen if people says nothing on release and only complain later, a.k.a, giving apple time to figure those out on their own. Maybe there will be more angrier commenters bashing apple to no end.

 

[Shirasaki]

Should've been ironed out at launch and not sometime in the future post launch like the memory restriction on iPadOS on iPad Pro M1.

Yeah, especially since this is their headline feature bragged about and anticipated by the millions.

 

[Rafagon]

The only thing that sucks about this being opt-in is that there are a lot of lazy devs that will take forever to add that one line of code or whatever it is.

How long did it take some devs to implement dark mode?

 

[4jasontv]

The only thing that sucks about this being opt-in is that there are a lot of lazy devs that will take forever to add that one line of code or whatever it is.

How long did it take some devs to implement dark mode?

And then you have abandoned apps that don't get updated because the developer quit or BUYZ ME NEW VERSION!!!1!

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

So, Apple was able to confirm it with MacRumors? I’m glad MacRumors got a response from Apple.

 

[Rafagon]

How were apps on the 120 Hz iPad taking advantage of the refresh rate there?

This isn't the first ProMotion iOS device.

Do those iPad developers need to declare that their apps use higher frame rates by adding an entry to their app's plist?

If so, then why isn't this ready at launch for the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max?

 

[cmaier]

Well, the article does acknowledge a bug affecting animations built using Core Animation.

Yep, but that’s not the 120hz issue

 

[cmaier]

How were apps on the 120 Hz iPad taking advantage of the refresh rate there?

This isn't the first ProMotion iOS device.

Do those iPad developers need to declare that their apps use higher frame rates by adding an entry to their app's plist?

If so, then why isn't this ready at launch for the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max?

Nope, no plist entry on the ipad is needed. Presumably this has something to do with battery optimizations on the iphones, for which battery life is more of an issue.

 

[matrix07]

Should've been ironed out at launch and not sometime in the future post launch like the memory restriction on iPadOS on iPad Pro M1. Imagine if Nvidia launched a new GPU where you don't get 100% usability until months later.

I remember when iPhone X launched some Apple own apps couldn't even take advantage of the new screen ratio. This thing happens.

 

[Naraxus]

There are bound to be apps that blindly assume 60 Hz, which would break if it suddenly changed to 120. Making it opt-in works around that issue, although it would've been nice to provide the details to developers in advance.

This is slighly offtopic but FOR THE HORDE!!!