iOS 16.1 Beta Adds More Pronounced Gray Border Around Dynamic Island When Using Black Wallpapers or in Dark Mode

[9594864]

You certainly think highly of yourself. But at the same time refuse to provide a single sample of your genius design. So much "talent" going to waste.

Dude it’s not hard, you could easily do it too if you wanted to. It just takes some thinking about what makes sense up there. The status bar should just not be distracting. If it doesn’t distract you then that’s awesome for you, but yeah

 

[Polaroid]

Hahaha you would scorch earth defending that piece of trash objectively highly distracting feature. It’s objectively faster to swipe down control center and tap to switch a song so yeah I will tell you that because it’s a fact and I don’t care that your bias disallows you from admitting to facts.

Objectively, factually dynamic island is highly distracting and adds almost nothing useful to the iOS experience. I’m sorry your bias won’t allow you to admit objective truths.

I on the other hand only care about reality. Despite the fact that I’m typing this statement on an iPhone 14 Pro, I can admit that dynamic island is a piece of garbage highly distracting near-useless feature.

You’re a very angry person, is your life that bad?

You chose to ignore a lot of what I said and using control center overlays the app I’m on and that’s even more distracting 😂

 

[9594864]

You’re a very angry person, is your life that bad?

You chose to ignore a lot of what I said and using control center overlays the app I’m on and that’s even more distracting 😂

It’s not distracting when it’s your intention. If your intention is to switch to the Weather app, it’s not a distraction to switch to the Weather app.

When your intention is to turn on the flashlight it’s not a distraction to swipe down control center and turn on the flashlight.

A distraction is when something is provoking your attention when you are actively doing something else. The dynamic island does exactly this; it distracts with moving elements in the status bar while you are reading the screen which is entirely static.

 

[ric22]

The waveform constantly moves during any audio playback in the background. It is highly distracting and entirely useless. Think about it for a moment. Literally the only utility in that would be if you had your volume all the way down for some reason and you noticed the extremely distracting waveform still jumping around…. If you didn’t have your volume muted you don’t need a stupid god damn waveform since you know… sound waves themselves tell you that audio is playing… LOL.

But does the distraction stop there? Ohhh noooo oh dear no it certainly does not. If you set a Timer it places the entire numeric countdown in the Dynamic Island…EVEN THE SECONDS. So it’s literally rotating numbers every single second up there and you can see it in your peripheral vision as you’re reading the rest of the screen which is totally static of course…. What’s more? The numbers are larger than the clock in the status bar, and they match the Timer aesthetic so they are orange on a black background.

I’m not finished… if you add a Timer over 1hr, it will show the numeric hours, minutes, and seconds countdown in the dynamic island and this is so large, and takes so much space that it pushes the CLOCK out of the status bar until the Timer drops below 1hr (but it’s even bugged right now so it messes that up and the numbers don’t reposition so the clock usually still stays off).

Apple designers are among the stupidest imaginable. I actually can’t believe it.

I am 100% confident people would prefer my designs…I can guarantee you wouldn’t be getting distracted from it. The status bar needs static or near-static content, and strictly black/white font and icons so as not to provoke the attention of the user toward background information. The user must actively think to look up there, not be drawn up there from movement in their peripheral vision.

So the dynamic island is terrible from a software point of view as well as a hardware point of view (look at the wasted space above it- it's literally pointlessly occupying more potential screen than the damn notch, yet the usual sycophants love it....)

 

[ProfessionalFan]

is your life that bad?

I'd argue their life must be exceptional actually. Considering they don't like Apple, yet spend a large amount of time on a website designed for fans of Apple. They must have a great and easy life, to be able to do that.

 

[9594864]

I'd argue their life must be exceptional actually. Considering they don't like Apple, yet spend a large amount of time on a website designed for fans of Apple. They must have a great and easy life, to be able to do that.

Unfortunately for you guys, you don’t understand that fans of Apple can have the logic to think on their own and absolutely hate certain things Apple does. I think multiple designs they’ve recently done are embarrassingly bad and a multitude of people should be let go because of them.

Unlike you guys whom are unimaginably biased and would like it if Apple kicked you in the nuts, I’m not like that, I’m okay with detesting certain things they do while loving others.

 

[9594864]

So the dynamic island is terrible from a software point of view as well as a hardware point of view (look at the wasted space above it- it's literally pointlessly occupying more potential screen than the damn notch, yet the usual sycophants love it....)

Yes, absolutely correct.

A dynamic status bar isn’t a bad idea in and of itself, but we don’t need a pill to do that. We don’t need to go above and beyond to try to make the hardware requirement ‘meld’ into the software design. It’s okay to be unapologetic with the design, and just say, this is it, it’s here.

In my opinion the notch should’ve remained, but at the pill’s current width. The pill could be raised up significantly, as you noted, and get rid of the wasted space above it.

Then there could still be a dynamic status bar, just not using distracting elements, but static, black or white elements, matching the rest of the status bar.

And you could even use the notch too, by making the notch itself touch-sensitive as the pill is now, but I’d have it do this: by default, tapping the notch would open spotlight search. However, in Settings I’d have a setting to customize that button. You could set the notch tap to do one of many different simple-actions, similar to how you can set double or triple tapping the back of the phone to do one of many different simple-actions. Of course we’d need to be careful so that users could still tap the top of the display to quick-jump to the top of a page without accidentally hitting the notch tap or vice versa.

 

[Tony Shi]

UX designer here. This is done to adhere to accessibility standards. Apple is actually one of the worst companies when it comes to visual accessibility in the industry right now. Most other companies comply with WCAG 2 with text elements under 19pt having a contrast ratio of 7:1, while apple on the other hand sometimes, doesn't even get to 3:1. So IMO this is a great first step.

 

[9594864]

UX designer here. This is done to adhere to accessibility standards. Apple is actually one of the worst companies when it comes to visual accessibility in the industry right now. Most other companies comply with WCAG 2 with text elements under 19pt having a contrast ratio of 7:1, while apple on the other hand sometimes, doesn't even get to 3:1. So IMO this is a great first step.

Fundamentally wrong.

Apple specifically—and correctly—designs innumerable accessibility settings right into Settings app. There are all numbers of different settings to increase contrast, bold font, increase text size, box-in buttons, etc.

There is a place to increase accessibility, you do not add accessibility to the default system operation itself, you simply add the settings to adjust to it.

Design should embrace the greatest percentage of users first, and then incorporate as many others as possible, in addition. Like, for example, you don’t have iOS font be bold and large because most users will be able to read smaller and thinner font, offering greater information density. You merely add the option to increase those for the fractional percentage of users who need them.

 

[ijordano]

Really quite annoying given that I use black to hide it and also to let the screen function as truly "always on" with just the widgets and time

 

[russell_314]

I think this is for those Dynamic Island deniers… No you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist 😂

 

[ric22]

I think this is for those Dynamic Island deniers… No you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist 😂

I think Apple is enjoying trolling everyone. What comes next, moving it down an inch so they have move space to play with around it? 😅

 

[russell_314]

I think Apple is enjoying trolling everyone. What comes next, moving it down an inch so they have move space to play with around it? 😅

Bring it on Apple! 😂😂😂

 

[pdoherty]

Apple will get to the in iOS 19 or 20. Their designers are all inept as evidenced by iOS 16 notifications and the dynamic Island.

My god it took them until iOS 13 to add Dark Mode. They are so ****** bad and stupid I can’t believe it.

And by their inability to even handle SWYPE for text input, with even the newest iOS 16 turning a swype of 'and' into 'And', 'Andy', and many other atrocities (like it not knowing super common words even when you type them out one character at a time (and then have to click the word in the help bar about the text input so it won't change it to something else).

iOS/iPadOS needs the same type of editable dictionary as Android has had for a decade. One where the user can use esoteric words (like their job uses) and once they type it once they can press-and-hold on it and choose "Add to Dictionary". And conversely, if SWYPE is mis-reading a gesture and the word it's choosing is an uncommon one that the user will willingly trade away to make the common one they *do* use a lot, you can press-and-hold and choose "Remove from Dictionary". Ancillary to the above-described features would be dictionaries available for download; this would allow industry-specific dictionaries to be appended to the system one so all the terms/acronyms of that industry are instantly available.

 

[JacobZA]

It feels to me like they reached strong concensus about optimal esthetics (and most practical use of screen space), all said "hear, hear! Hear what this brilliant and eloquent speaker has to say about that hideous Island).

And then they ran the other way.

 

[aPple nErd]

UX designer here. This is done to adhere to accessibility standards. Apple is actually one of the worst companies when it comes to visual accessibility in the industry right now. Most other companies comply with WCAG 2 with text elements under 19pt having a contrast ratio of 7:1, while apple on the other hand sometimes, doesn't even get to 3:1. So IMO this is a great first step.

Then it can be enabled with the increase contrast accessibility toggle already built into IOS. "UX designer here" doesn't mean anything when you have dozens of end users commenting on how much they hate something you actually consider "good" UX design.

 

[Tony Shi]

Then it can be enabled with the increase contrast accessibility toggle already built into IOS. "UX designer here" doesn't mean anything when you have dozens of end users commenting on how much they hate something you actually consider "good" UX design.

Wow, here comes the personal insults. How typical