For those unfamiliar with Apple’s lingo, this year the Cupertino company’s Pro models ditched the iconic notch in favor of a new cutout. In truth, however, the iPhone 14 Pro has not one, but two cutouts: one for the selfie camera and another for the Face ID sensors.
The Dynamic Island surfaces (pun intended) when iOS merges the two cutouts and creates a feature that represents a “seamless blend between hardware and software” in Apple’s own terms.
Admittedly, the aforementioned statement is, strictly speaking, accurate - the blend is indeed seamless. The problem is that both the software and the hardware behind the Dynamic Island are suboptimal for a number of reasons.
In the following paragraphs, I will give my take on why the Dynamic Island, in its current state, is more of a gimmick that seeks to mask lazy design than a truly useful feature. Now would be the time for two disclaimers.
Firstly, this is just one man’s opinion, based on personal experience owning an iPhone 14 Pro. Secondly, this is in no way an Apple rant - I actually consider myself an Apple fanboy and I am very much deep into the Apple ecosystem.
Now, after the rather lengthy intro, I will present my case as to why the Dynamic Island represents a (notably rare) instance of poor execution on Apple’s part.
On the hardware front, I want to address a very obvious pet peeve many have with the Dynamic Island. The whole point of introducing a cutout is to maximize the amount of usable screen real estate and to achieve an optimal body-to-screen ratio. In a sense, almost every smartphone manufacturer is working towards reaching the Holy Grail: a full edge-to-edge screen.
It should be noted that Apple has, in fact, increased the screen-to-body ratio of the iPhone Pro lineup with the implementation of the Dynamic Island. But has this maximized the amount of usable screen space?
The answer is a clear “no”. The Dynamic island may be narrower than the notch on the previous generation, but the pixels above the former are virtually unusable. This means that the Dynamic Island effectively takes more vertical space than its predecessor.
Based on the image above, we can clearly see that the Dynamic Island makes rather poor use of screen space and is, in some regards, worse than the notch. This has become apparent to me while using third-party apps. Content that would otherwise be visible with a “notched” iPhone is pushed further down. Nevertheless, this issue will likely be resolved shortly as developers increasingly optimize their apps for the new iPhones.
In fact, I dare say that if Apple had simply slapped the Dynamic Island on the top bezel, the iPhone 14 Pro would have had a more usable screen. However, then Apple would have been criticized for recycling the same design that it adopted some 5 years ago with the iPhone X.
A big reason why Apple transitioned to the Dynamic Island is the need for a tangible design change. Well, the Dynamic Island is different, that much is true, but not necessarily in a good way. Furthermore, as Apple is already working on under-display Face ID, it would have made more sense to wait for the technology to evolve before changing the front design of the iPhone.
Many other Apple products have only recently adopted the “notch” (the MacBook Air did so this year), so sticking with something that has become iconic and is more usable, would have been, in my view, better than resorting to an interim solution only for the sake of delivering a design change.
By this I mean that nobody expects Apple to keep the Dynamic Island around once it has figured out a way to put Face ID under the display. Thus, the Dynamic Island has built-in obsolescence by design.
The last part also ties in nicely with the second element of my critique. If the Dynamic Island is not made to last, there really is no point in making it particularly useful. In fact, by keeping its functionality limited, its removal will be received rather positively. Therefore, Apple truly has no incentive to step up its software game - hence, my next point.