An Always-On Display
While the LTPO displays that are almost certainly coming to this year’s iPhone Pro are necessary for supporting “ProMotion” refresh rates on OLED screens, they also bring another very significant benefit with them: much lower power consumption.
The magic of LTPO is found in the ability to reduce the screen refresh rates down to minimal levels, to the point where they’re basically sipping power. OLED screens are very efficient at maintaining static images — it’s updating the screen that consumes the most power.
This is the same technology that’s used for the Always-On Display on the Apple Watch Series 5 and Series 6, and anybody who has used one of those models will note that the display only updates about once per minute — on an analog watch face, the second hand disappears entirely when you lower your wrist.
So while an Always-On Display would be a cool addition to an iPhone, it’s safe to say that it will have the same limitations — fine for displaying the date and time and notifications, but not for animating your Lock Screen in real-time. That said, it looks like Apple’s MagSafe Leather Sleeve was pretty much made for this exact purpose, with a window that shows the time when the iPhone is inserted in the sleeve. We’re almost certain this was planned before Apple realized that it wouldn’t be able to include the LTPO displays in the iPhone 12, and Apple simply decided to release it anyway.