Last fall, Apple introduced us to the Dynamic Island with the usual exaggeration.
The new free-floating pill-shaped notch on the iPhone 14 Pro was described as “magical.” It would enable “a whole new iPhone experience.” And although we take everything with a grain of salt from the company that presented the Digital Crown as the eighth wonder of the world, the Dynamic Island seemed promising at the time.
It looks good, for starters. In the right light, it really looks like the notch is stretching and contracting. It also didn’t feature much in the leaks or rumors leading up to the event, so it surprised us. But after our first week with the Dynamic Island, it was hard to know what to think. Sure, it did a fine job of telling you how long you were on the phone and whether your AirDrop was successful. But the other things – the bold new way to interact with your phone things – was dependent on third-party app makers adopting Live Activities and feeding time-sensitive information into the Dynamic Island, and that wouldn’t happen until later in the year.
By mid-year, the concept was still promising, but its limitations were also becoming clearer. Of course, it’s useful to see the timer at the top of your screen counting down while you’re doing other things on your phone. It’s also useful to keep an eye on your Uber’s arrival. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that, despite Apple’s claims, Dynamic Island was never really intended to be a destination in itself.
For starters, it’s often overshadowed by another feature introduced on the 14 Pro: the Always On Display. When you display a timer or a game score on Dynamic Island and lock your phone, that information is passed to the main screen. When I’m following a game or keeping an eye on a timer, more often than not I see it – not on the island.
It’s just a handy tool that makes your phone a little less annoying to use
Based on nothing more than anecdotal evidence gathered from talking to friends and colleagues, the always-on display is by far the most striking feature. People hate it and turn it off, or find it distracting for a few days and then get used to it. But all of them noticed it in a way that they didn’t see the Dynamic Island, which they mainly noticed the first few times they plugged in their Airpods or scanned for Face ID. Then it disappeared straight into the background.
I don’t think we’ve seen everything the Dynamic Island can do. More apps will start using it, especially if the entire iPhone 15 range adopts the feature as the rumors suggest. But it’s certainly not an exciting new way to interact with your phone; it’s just a handy tool among some other new features that make your phone a little less annoying to use. And that’s fine.
On balance it is a step in the right direction. Apple has occasionally been known to sacrifice usability for aesthetics, but the Dynamic Island manages both: it looks nice And it is useful. It would just be nice if Apple also remembered the other, less noticeable things we want. You know, a battery that hasn’t degraded to 90 percent after a year. Or adopt a messaging protocol that allows me to send videos to my mom that don’t look like dog poop. Or a little more help managing the nine thousand app notifications I get every day.
Stunning new UI features are the ingredients keynotes are made of, but the real magic is in the less exciting details. I hope there are enough of them in the iPhone 15; exciting is overrated anyway.
Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge