Dynamic Island: How Apple Turned a Flaw into a Feature

Apple has taken its cutout, embraced it, and doubled down on it. And in the process has shown software innovation that has been lacking on the iPhone for the last few years.

When Apple unveiled the iPhone X in 2018, it marked a new direction in the way that iPhones were designed. Gone were the home button and chunky forehead and chin bezels. Instead, they were replaced by a new gesture navigation system and a mostly edge-to-edge display with a cutout at the top that housed the front-facing camera and face unlock system. This became known as the notch and it has been a staple in the look of iPhones for the last 4 years.

The notch has been ruthlessly mocked as Android competitors have transitioned to a variety of ways to solve the screen-to-body ratio dilemma. There were iterations of moving parts such as swivel cameras from Asus and pop-up selfie mechanisms from Oppo and OnePlus for a while. But eventually, the Android world settled on the hole-punch selfie camera that we see on Samsung, Pixel, and OnePlus devices today. While all this was happening Apple maintained the notch and thus opened itself up to countless amounts of ridicule from Android fans. Apple has taken that ridicule and instead of doing what Android phones are doing has doubled down on the cutout and made it a feature on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max called the Dynamic Island. A stroke of genius that has taken what was once a major design flaw into a feature that many others will likely copy in the coming months.

What is the Dynamic Island?

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first, the name “Dynamic Island” is a classic over-the-top Apple naming convention that borders on ridiculousness. But the name is intended to elude to what the cutout can do for Apple users. Instead of a static cutout whose only function is to unlock the phone and take selfies, Dynamic Island functions as a sort of status indicator of tasks that are being accomplished. It changes sizes depending on the function that is being executed such as listening to music or a podcast, a timer being countdown, or a phone call coming in.