Apple’s Always on Display has been introduced for iPhone 14 Pro models recently. Let’s explain how Apple’s Always on Display works-
Overview
Apple’s Always on Display of iPhone 14 Pro models is a non-customizable lock screen that will show necessary lock screen information, such as wallpaper in a darker version, added widgets, any running activity with real-time updates, and obviously the clock. This time the font is customizable on the lock screen. You can choose to have different lock screens for different modes such as general, silent, and focus. Thus, AoD sounds pretty interesting with the iPhone 14 Pro models.
How Does the iPhone’s Always on Display Work?
To learn about the working procedure of Always on Display, we need to learn a bit about the refresh rate and how an OLED screen works.
Digital screens do not stay turned on whenever we work or consume media using them. That would cause a huge power draw by the screen. Digital screens have a turn-on and turn-off thing going on all the time, which we understand by Hz. To make things easily understandable, a 60-Hz screen means that a particular screen will turn on and turn off 60 times per second. We usually do not see the flickering of the screen due to our persistence in vision.
Moving on, OLED screens are made of separated OLED panels putting in a matrix. They are independent of one another. Thus, when a screen has something to show, only the corresponding pixels or independent OLED panels are turned on. On the other hand, the LCD display panel needs all the pixels to be turned on even to show a single dot on the screen. This is how OLED screens are more power efficient if you have a pitch background or wallpaper on your device.
Now back to Always on Display, iPhone 14 Pro lowers the refresh rate to 1-Hz i.e the screen will turn off and turn on once in a second and dims the wallpaper i.e only a limited number of pixels will light up to show content on the screen while Always on Display is active. Apart from that, the Always on Display pre-renders individual frames and updates only the changeable contents, such as the clock; when needed.
The efficiency of Apple’s Always on Display
Apple programmed the iPhones to be efficient at all times and obviously be a less power-hungry device. AoD is smartly programmed to save power when no one is seeing it. Always on Display turns itself off, when your iPhone is lying face down, in your pocket, in the bag, in sleep focus mode, or if you’re wearing an Apple watch and leave the room where the phone is. Apple claims that the A16 Bionic chip uses “minimal power” to manage its incredibly power-efficient display, which is also smart enough to serve you the best. Apple claims that AoD has little to very negligible impact on battery life.
How to disable Always on Display
There are people who might not be interested in AoD. We got your back. You can turn off AoD on iPhone 14 models by following these steps:
- Launch Settings app
- Scroll down and Tap on Display & Brightness
- Toggle off the Always-on Display option
That’s all you need to do to either turn on or turn off the AoD.
Wrapping up
Apple is awesome with technology. Even though they adopt certain features lately but they know how to incorporate features to their best. Comment below on your thoughts about Apple’s Always on Display. Stay tuned for more.
Author-
S. Hossain, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Xplnrs.com, is a passionate Tech analyst and Leaker - who is developing Xplnrs Lab for a while now.