Apple says an issue is preventing some animations from using high refresh rates on the iPhone 13 Pros

Apple’s iPhone 13 lineup launched Friday, and one of the key features of the 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max are their ProMotion displays with variable refresh rates that can top out at 120Hz. But as spotted by 9to5Mac, some app animations in third-party apps are currently only running at 60Hz. That might be frustrating if you were expecting to see buttery-smooth animations across all of your apps with the new phones, but when we asked Apple what was going on, the company shared two reasons why this might be happening.

One reason is that developers will need to update their apps to declare that they use the higher refresh rate. This can be done by adding an entry to the app’s plist, Apple tells The Verge, and the company says it plans to share documentation about the entry you need to add soon. But in some cases, animations built with the company’s Core Animation technology are also affected by an issue that will be fixed in an upcoming software update, Apple says.

Variable refresh rate screens offer a lot of benefits, including smoother animations and scrolling when you’re using the device and battery savings the screen runs at lower refresh rates. We were impressed with the screens on the 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max in our review, and it’s good to hear that third party apps will be able to take full advantage of what they have to offer — though some may have to wait until after that software update.