iirc the display engines are built into the AXX chipsets. As only pro phones get a pro chip, Apple probably does not add the capabilities to drive displays at higher refresh rates to the non-pro silicon. So even if the display itself could go higher, the hardware to drive it is missing, not locked in software.

It‘s good to call out on Apple for delivering subpar displays in a „premium“ product. The non-pro phones being 60Hz only in 2024 just to upsell to the pro phones is ridiculous.

Peculiar to see that there is an iPhone 15 Pro chip in another, new device. Wasn’t the industry consensus that Apple wanted to move on from the costly first generation N3 node as quickly as possible? For the Mx chips, everything seemed like the M3 generation (also on first gen N3) was just a very shortlived in between stopgap solution with everything seemingly shifting to M4.