Apple is rumored to have a new Studio Display coming soon, with early 2026 now the most likely launch target. And a key detail of today’s M5 announcements might be hinting at a highly-requested new feature for the next Apple Studio Display: 120Hz refresh rate.
M5 iPad Pro adds support for 120Hz external displays ahead of new Apple Studio Display
Today Apple unveiled a trio of new products with its next-gen M5 chip:
Among the variety of new iPad Pro features, there’s one in particular that stands out as curious: support for driving an external display at up to 120Hz.
From Apple’s press release:
The new iPad Pro adds the ability to drive external displays at up to 120Hz — ideal for creative workflows like video editing as well as gaming. And for users with a 120Hz external display, iPad Pro also brings new support for Adaptive Sync, which provides the lowest possible latency in external display performance, resulting in smoother motion and fewer perceived glitches, useful for low-latency use cases like gaming.
Offering support for 120Hz, including Adaptive Sync, is not a trivial feature addition.
It’s possible Apple is only shipping these new features because it expects iPadOS 26 to spark a growing base of iPad “power users.”
But that seems a bit of a stretch.
iPadOS 26 does make the iPad more powerful for productivity than ever before. However, Stage Manager in iPadOS 18 was reason enough to use the iPad with an external display.
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