Good point. I've never tried 480 Hz, only 240 Hz on a 24" monitor. Another important factor which is ignored is the size of the display. Even 60 Hz is smooth on a small 3" display because the distance moved by the projection on the retina is tiny. When sitting up close to a 32" monitor, the same animation would traverse a huge portion of your retina making every frame visible.
If itâ(TM)s hard to tell the difference then the content being viewed doesn't benefit from it. There are scientific papers by the military showing we can see the difference up to 960 Hz or something after which they stopped the test. I donâ(TM)t need an RCT for something thatâ(TM)s blatantly obvious.
I have both 120 Hz and 240 Hz displays for different purposes. The difference is actually bigger on the desktop than in most games. In strategy games where you pan the map around a lot, similar to desktop usage, there is huge difference.
I know, itâ(TM)s not the right analogy. The difference in smoothness is very similar. There is a day and night difference between 120 and 240 Hz when angular movement is involved like zooming in with a rifle.
If Apple really wanted to they could entangle the iMessage certificate somewhere with the low-level chain of trust and that would be the end of 3rd party clients. They probably don't do this yet because of older Macs that don't have a Secure Enclave.
Just moving the mouse and scrolling text at 60 Hz is annoying and a strain on the eyes after getting used to higher refresh rates. Every device I have is at least 120 Hz.