Ok, those measurements were from the Xcode simulator:
Anyway, I believe that it’s now well established that the pill goes slightly lower than the notch, as can for example be seen in comparisons with fullscreen video.
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Check Out the iPhone 14 Pro's Dynamic Island in Action
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Anyway, I believe that it’s now well established that the pill goes slightly lower than the notch, as can for example be seen in comparisons with fullscreen video.
I agree — I believe we’ll have the DI for 4-6 years. But if it is even possible to not have any cutout, there will probably need to be some replacement for displaying the info that we’ll be accustomed to looking at in the DI.
Reviewers keep saying that a long-press should take you to the app and a tap should peek at the app by expanding the island.
However, this would be the exact opposite of how long-press is used EVERYWHERE else in iOS.
If they had reversed it would confuse users. Imagine tapping a link and having it bring up the preview of that web page content without opening Safari and taking you to the page. Imagine having to long-press an app icon to open an app. Imagine you tap an image in photos and instead of just opening that photo it enlarged that photo, blurred the background and gave you a share sheet context menu for that photo.
Had Apple gone the other way with the Dynamic Island it would have been a huge UX inconsistency.
However, this would be the exact opposite of how long-press is used EVERYWHERE else in iOS.
If they had reversed it would confuse users. Imagine tapping a link and having it bring up the preview of that web page content without opening Safari and taking you to the page. Imagine having to long-press an app icon to open an app. Imagine you tap an image in photos and instead of just opening that photo it enlarged that photo, blurred the background and gave you a share sheet context menu for that photo.
Had Apple gone the other way with the Dynamic Island it would have been a huge UX inconsistency.
To me, it’s taking something inevitable — cutouts for the camera and FaceTime ID — and putting it to creative use. It’s not done for fanboy fawning.
Just got the iPhone 14 Pro and while the DI is cool i can see how it won't really go far in development and 3rd party usage as within a few years the island will be gone and they'll have a "full screen" device with face id etc under screen
The new Dynamic Island is arguably one of the iPhone 14 Pro's most interesting features, so with the new iPhones now in the hands of customers, we thought we'd take a deeper look at the Dynamic Island, how it works, and what it does.
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During the iPhone 14 rumor cycle, we knew that Apple was working on an alternative to the notch that incorporated a pill-shaped cutout and a hole punch cutout for the TrueDepth camera hardware, but what came as a surprise is the clever way that Apple has integrated this new space into the iPhone's interface.
Pixels around the Dynamic Island merge it into one pill-shaped area that changes size and shape to accommodate various types of alerts, notifications, and interactions, turning it into a kind of front-and-center information hub. It can do everything from showing you Maps directions to confirming Apple Pay payments, with a list of some of the possibilities below.
The Dynamic Island works with Live Activities, and right now you can test it out with the Timer and with live sports if you happen to be running the iOS 16.1 beta. Live Activities are going to launch in iOS 16.1. Developers can create experiences for the Dynamic Island too, so we can expect to see innovative apps that take advantage of the new interface.
- Expanded into a large rectangle to show upcoming Maps directions without having to open the Maps app.
- Displaying Maps directions in a smaller pill-shaped interface for when you just need a quick glance at the next turn.
- Square shaped for an Apple Pay payment confirmation.
- Showing a music waveform and time remaining on a song that's playing.
- Tracking the time of arrival of a Lyft.
- Displaying privacy indicators when the microphone or camera is in use.
- Displaying a small bar with the phone icon and the length of the phone call.
- Displaying an AirDrop interface when transferring files.
- Showing a timer.
- Keeping track of sports scores.
- Accessing music controls and a music player.
- Showing AirPods connection status and battery life.
- Displaying iPhone charging status and battery life.
- Low battery alerts.
- Turning the iPhone's silent mode on or off.
You can interact with content displayed in the Dynamic Island by long pressing to get to a widget for expanded controls, or tapping to go right into the app.
The Dynamic Island is capable of displaying multiple functions at once, and when that happens, it splits into a larger pill-shaped area and a smaller circular area so you can see two things at once. You can swap between them and tap into them like you can with the standard Dynamic Island interface.
Make sure to check out our video to see Dynamic Island in action with all kinds of apps and functions, and if you have an iPhone 14 Pro, let us know in the comments below what you think of the new interface.
Article Link: Check Out the iPhone 14 Pro's Dynamic Island in Actio
Contrary to your experience, I was at Target today and decided to check out the phone. I loved the Dynamic Island. The Always On was a feature I did not expect to care about but I love how Apple did it.
Shame that messages notifications are still coming in the old way. It would have been nicer having every notification systemwide come through the DI
It’s a clever adaptation, but one correction I’d make to your statement is that it doesn’t hide a “hardware-required cutout”. The island is not required, it’s just the specific implementation Apple chose. There are other cutout options, or even no cutout, or a possibly cross between cutout and non-cutout (software dynamic bezels).
I agree that the island sits lower from the top, but I’m not sure about that Xcode simulator view showing only 8 pixels gained.
My numbers were for the screen sizes on the tech specs for each phone. Those show 18/24 extra pixels in height which would, pretty much, offset the island drift.
Maybe it’s a physical vs. logical pixels thing. I expect someone will write a blog post with more detailed information in the next days/weeks (someone always does).
I think the argument is rather that a tap should do the more common action and long press the less common action(s). And the reviewers are of the opinion that opening the app is the less commonly wanted action.
Now I want little zombies climbing out of the pill and limping around the top instead of cute kittens.In other words, Zombie Island.
Is this a joke? It took 6 hours for my phone to activate today and the dynamic island is an eye sore.
Had the phone for about 7 hours now. It’s faded.
Took less than 2 hours to activate, unpair watch, restore iPhone, restore watch. The island is terrific. Love it. Always on is great. Spending more time elaborating would be a waste of my time given how much Apple Hate exists here.
