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

[darngooddesign]

The dynamic island is pure marketing.
It makes iPhones recognisable.

The pill cutout, like the notch before it, is what makes the iPhone visually recognizable; the small DI icons probably aren’t noticible enough. Similarly, hole-punch cameras are one of the things that make Android phones recognizable, at least up until Apple does under-screen FaceID with a hole-punch camera.

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.

Every iPhone with the pill cutout got Dynamic Island functionality, there is no software update that iPhones with the Island are missing because they all came with the DI functionality. No one said that there is a hardware reason for older iPhones missing the DI, it simply wasn't designed for notches; that being said, Apple could have added a Dynamic Notch and it would look fine because I have VinylPod for my NotchBook Pro and it works well, the dev has another app which lets you use a Dynamic Notch for clipboard functionality.

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.

Notifications aren't missing a button because the notifications are the button and they even have long-press functionality. Anyway, there is no difference between notifications on the 16E and the 16Pro so that’s not the reason you wouldn’t get the E.

It's always funny when people who obviously don't care that much about the DI are mad about some aspect of it.

 

[I7guy]

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.

As has been shown through the history of cell phones ideas tend to get copied (as in Apple vs google in 2008). This is a nice innovative one.

Your have to ask Apple as to why this didn’t trickle down. But manufacturers don’t always trickle down all features.

 

[darngooddesign]

As has been shown through the history of cell phones ideas tend to get copied (as in Apple vs google in 2008). This is a nice innovative one.

Your have to ask Apple as to why this didn’t trickle down. But manufacturers don’t always trickle down all features.

One reason why there isn’t a dynamic notch is that without empty space above the expanded notch it’s a lot harder to trigger things like scroll to top, especially on the 12 Mini with its old wide notch. Considering it would have to be supported on phones with the original wide notch size, it’s possible there wasn’t enough space for the really wide DI info and still being able to have a large enough touch target beside it.

Or maybe they just wanted it as an upgrade carrot, but only Apple knows if that’s true.

 

[cicalinarrot]

The pill cutout, like the notch before it, is what makes the iPhone visually recognizable; the small DI icons probably aren’t noticible enough. Similarly, hole-punch cameras are one of the things that make Android phones recognizable, at least up until Apple does under-screen FaceID with a hole-punch camera.

Every iPhone with the pill cutout got Dynamic Island functionality, there is no software update that iPhones with the Island are missing because they all came with the DI functionality. No one said that there is a hardware reason for older iPhones missing the DI, it simply wasn't designed for notches; that being said, Apple could have added a Dynamic Notch and it would look fine because I have VinylPod for my NotchBook Pro and it works well, the dev has another app which lets you use a Dynamic Notch for clipboard functionality.

Notifications aren't missing a button because the notifications are the button and they even have long-press functionality.

It's always funny when people who obviously don't care that much about the DI are mad about some aspect of it.

You didn't understand half of my comment, maybe I wasn't clear.
The dynamic island is nothing but a software update that phone with the notch could easily get. No hardware feature allowed it to exist, it was just a stylistic choice to build that new system around the pill. This is all I was complaining about.
Old notifications were quite bad, looked worse and required more steps to be used. Long-pressing a button to make a few option in a menu with no colors and no images, just words you have to read is objectively and measurably worse than just immediately seeing two buttons with images and different colors.
There's literally no reason why phones with a notch couldn't run the new and better system. At the same time, there would be absolutely nothing special, except for how the screen looks (which is pretty subjective) about the DI: software around it (which, again, Apple arbitrarily chose to lock to the DI) is all that matters.
I like the software of the DI, just as much as I'd like it if it worked around the notch of an iPhone 12 or under the forehead of an iPhone 6. Being around the island makes it a little cooler but its core is the better notifications and applets which any phone could have very easily been running for around a decade now. That's why I couldn't get a phone without the DI and I also hate it and I believe is a silly gimmick.

 

[darngooddesign]

You didn't understand half of my comment, maybe I wasn't clear.
The dynamic island is nothing but a software update that phone with the notch could easily get. No hardware feature allowed it to exist, it was just a stylistic choice to build that new system around the pill. This is all I was complaining about.
Old notifications were quite bad, looked worse and required more steps to be used. Long-pressing a button to make a few option in a menu with no colors and no images, just words you have to read is objectively and measurably worse than just immediately seeing two buttons with images and different colors.
There's literally no reason why phones with a notch couldn't run the new and better system. At the same time, there would be absolutely nothing special, except for how the screen looks (which is pretty subjective) about the DI: software around it (which, again, Apple arbitrarily chose to lock to the DI) is all that matters.
I like the software of the DI, just as much as I'd like it if it worked around the notch of an iPhone 12 or under the forehead of an iPhone 6. Being around the island makes it a little cooler but its core is the better notifications and applets which any phone could have very easily been running for around a decade now. That's why I couldn't get a phone without the DI and I also hate it and I believe is a silly gimmick.

Of course there is a hardware reason; the notch is missing tappable screen above it and has less space on either side.

Tappable screen above allows you to not have to press as far below the notch possibly triggering something in the app or browsers.

The Pill is narrower than even the smaller notch so there is more space for wider DI info like flight, phone call, and wave forms.

Here is the 12 Mini with the old wide notch, there isn’t space for a DI info to the right of the notch AND a large enough scroll to top hit area. Apple knows that if it didn’t support all notch phones, there would be nothing but somethinggate whining and accusations.


Dynamic Island isn’t notifications, it’s a live task status. All notch phones with ios16 and newer have the same notifications as the dynamic island phones

 

[UpsetTheAppleCart]

I like the Dynamic Island, but I wouldn’t mind if it was a bit smaller.

 

[darngooddesign]

I like the Dynamic Island, but I wouldn’t mind if it was a bit smaller.

I posted this earlier, but this is what it would look like a lot smaller due to under screen Face ID.