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iPhone 17 With a Smaller Dynamic Island? Here's What Rumors Say

I thought the Dynamic Island was the dumbest thing from the second they announced it. Just like the Touch Bar. As much as I love Apple products, their decisions are baffling sometimes. The Dynamic Island protrudes further into the screen, obscuring video playback and offers nothing in return. At least for me. I haven’t touched it since the first day I got one. I thought “what’s the point of that?”, instantly forgot it did anything and never touched it again. Slowly reducing the notch size would have made way more sense.
 
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FasterQuieter said:
I thought the Dynamic Island was the dumbest thing from the second they announced it. Just like the Touch Bar. As much as I love Apple products, their decisions are baffling sometimes. The Dynamic Island protrudes further into the screen, obscuring video playback and offers nothing in return. At least for me. I haven’t touched it since the first day I got one. I thought “what’s the point of that?”, instantly forgot it did anything and never touched it again. Slowly reducing the notch size would have made way more sense.
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They were slowly reducing the notch size. That was the plan and what they were doing. Just not quick enough for the preferences of many, but practical issues prevented them from reducing quicker unless they went back to a huge gap above the entire display like earlier phones. So the island wasn't so much some cool idea as much as a way to make lemonade out of the lemons. I find myself using it without any real intention to do so. Most commonly to quickly get back to a map navigating and back to my music player when music is playing.
 
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I7guy said:
The dynamic island is an innovative feature solving the mess from Face ID. Props to Cook and gang for providing something useful. Hopefully it sticks around a bit.
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Given the talk about the redesigned UI in iOS 26 based on Vision Pro, I'm guessing it will be reborn as some sort of floating widget that I suspect you can move around. So a floating, movable dynamic island if you will. Just my guess.
 
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I always get the pro max version and never really notice the island or notch. 😜
 
bradman83 said:
The dot projector used for FaceID is currently prism-based and takes up almost the entire thickness of an iPhone or iPad. This is the reason why FaceID is not currently doable in a MacBook's even thinner screen chassis. Switching to a metalens for the dot projector could potentially collapse the amount of space needed and allow Apple to finally offer FaceID on its laptops.
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Interesting … given that the MBP is rumoured to have a redesign next year this sounds promising that it'll include Face ID. Though, I find the combination of Apple Watch unlock and Touch ID to be fine day-to-day tbh.
 
digimc said:
It's hard for me to believe that Apple would make any significant changes to the Dynamic Island this year if they were planning to scrap it altogether next year.
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That’s what I thought but they did make the notch narrower for one generation before introducing Dynamic Island after it existed for 3 generations
 
bradman83 said:
The dot projector used for FaceID is currently prism-based and takes up almost the entire thickness of an iPhone or iPad. This is the reason why FaceID is not currently doable in a MacBook's even thinner screen chassis. Switching to a metalens for the dot projector could potentially collapse the amount of space needed and allow Apple to finally offer FaceID on its laptops.
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This is wholly inaccurate. The iPad Pro has FaceID, and is 5.1 millimeters thick.
 
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JohnC1959 said:
That would be nice when I'm docked on my desktop. I keep the MacBook open as an added display along side my large display. When I need to authorize something I either have to awkwardly reach from my desktop keyboard to the laptop (on a stand) or enter the password. With FaceID I could just turn my head slightly and be done.
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I agree with you as I have a similar setup.
However in the meantime I have bought magic keyboards with Touch ID buttons and they work great. You should try them if you haven’t already
 
The laws for quoting diagonals should change. If you say a phone has a 6.9 inch display, you should be able to fit a rectangle with a 6.9 inch diagonal onto that display without any missing pixels for rounded corners, notches, dynamic islands or any of that stuff. If that was the rule, we would get more screen estate that is really usable.
 
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iPhone 2025 (base) - 128GB
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iPhone Pro 2025 - 256GB
iPhone Ultra 2025 - 256GB
 
_Refurbished_ said:
Ditto. It’s a dynamic widget that intelligently handles small tasks. I think it’s Apple’s best addition to the OS in years.
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Yeah, people mistakenly think Dynamic Island is the pill cutout when it's the info on either side and the larger long press info display. Dynamic Island will likely persist even with a hold punch camera.
 
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saintmac said:
I agree with you as I have a similar setup.
However in the meantime I have bought magic keyboards with Touch ID buttons and they work great. You should try them if you haven’t already
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I was all set to buy one when I learned it doesn't have backlit keys. I have a keyboard tray that is lower than the desk and the desk blocks some of the light so backlit keys help a lot. For now I mostly just type my password --I'll live.
 
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When FaceID moves under screen, the Dynamic Island will likely only appear when information is to be displayed, and will do so as a user option. I for one would toggle it on.
 
Abstract said:
I like the Dynamic Island, and hope it survives into the pinhole selfie-cam iPhone era.
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This is what that Dynamic Island would look like with under screen FaceID.

iPhone-14-Pro-Dynamic-Island.jpg
 
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mlayer said:
I'm amused at the number of complaints by iPhone users about a feature that Android is only now implementing in maybe a better than half-baked manner. This idea of the bezel-less, notch-less, 100% screen-to-body ratio phone that includes FaceID is more illusion than reality at this point.

Regardless, a lot of users including me use Dynamic Island daily, frequently. It's quite useful. If Apple is going to phase it out, it better come with a better mousetrap.
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I’d love a bezel-less, notch-less, edge-to-edge phone.
 
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I like many want the dynamic island sunk. However the rumours are not stacking up that well.

Ross Young’s predictions are also to be taken with a grain of salt. I feel that whatever changes are coming to face id have to happen this year in accordance to Jeff Pu.

It could just be possibly be that Apple might shrink the dynamic island in 2025 (just like they did with the iphone 13 pro max notch), and then remove the face id completely in 2026.

Finally the front facing camera may be entirely removed in 2027 in accordance to Ross Young. I do not believe its feasible for Apple to change the display tech every year based on past changes Apple prefers to take the slow route.
 
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I7guy said:
The dynamic island is an innovative feature solving the mess from Face ID. Props to Cook and gang for providing something useful. Hopefully it sticks around a bit.
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It’s a plain and normal software widget, as had been available on Android (or their own Mac OS X) many years ago.

Useful and clever at obscuring the pill-shaped cutout - up hardly innovative. They could provide the same on older iPhones or the 16e - and it’s indefensible that they don’t.
 
42545 said:
one way or another the dynamic island occupies more space than the notch and I think it looks bad.If you put them side by side, the apps are higher on the one with the notch.
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The dynamic island is pure marketing.
It makes iPhones recognisable.
And adds a new, barely acceptable applets/notification system was design to work around it. Not that they're related in any technical way, people with older phones could easily get decent applets and notifications too but Apple decided to exclude them from a fundamental software update they were entitled to by pretending it was hardware-related. Think about it: six months old $1500 phone, Apple finally introduces long due basic updates, you can't have them.
And without that software update, the island adds absolutely nothing to your experience, it's just like the notch, if not worse.
The fact that they've developed a new phone, the 16E, which I'd never buy because of those 2010-style notifications that can't even have a button in them, is absolutely ridiculous.
 
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I appreciate the DI sometimes, like when you're listening to music and it shows the artwork and you can click on it and easily do what you need to do in there, or when you're travelling and it places an alert there for you to access. It does seem like a waste of space other times, but some of the heads up info has been useful.
 
jonnysods said:
I appreciate the DI sometimes, like when you're listening to music and it shows the artwork and you can click on it and easily do what you need to do in there, or when you're travelling and it places an alert there for you to access. It does seem like a waste of space other times, but some of the heads up info has been useful.
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I also like the long-press functionality; the long-press flashlight control is very very cool.
 
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