Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro and flagship iPhone 14 Pro Max have done away with the “notch,” an inelegant kludge if there ever was one, and finally arrived at where Steve Jobs would have pushed them had he been presented with the notch idea back during iPhone X’s development: the “Dynamic Island.”
The Dynamic Island is a truly Apple innovation that’s a marriage of hardware and software. It delivers music, sports scores, FaceTime, and so much more — all without taking you away from what you’re doing.
Back when the iPhone X came out, Apple introduced FaceID, which required an ugly notch cut into the screen that negated the #1 selling point of that iPhone: “It’s all display.” People hated it, but it stayed and it eventually became a symbol that identified Apple’s new phone generation, much like the white earbuds did with the iPod.
Fast forward four generations and here we are, with a new iPhone 14 Pro that transforms the hardware notch into a pill-shaped hole in the top middle of the screen that contains the front camera and all the FaceID sensors. And the true genius of that pill isn’t in its updated physical design, but in how the software so adeptly normalizes a hole in your screen. Apple has made the once-maligned camera in the middle of your precious content feel absolutely essential.
Now, Apple’s new pill looks ugly. Apple knows it. You know it. It’s basically the same wretched mechanism that many Android phones have been using for years now. But rather than shying away from it, this is what Apple did: make it into the centerpiece of their new design with some gimmicky-but-clever-but-actually-pretty-useless-but-pretty-cool-but-mostly-silly user interface element that is a true master class on how to turn a drawback into an advantage.
MacDailyNews Take: “Unapologetically Plastic” this is not. That was nothing more than a pure marketing slogan placed into the mouth of Jony Ive in an attempt to get the jump on an obvious point of criticism. Nobody bought it (just like the plastic iPhone 5C it described).
The “Dynamic Island” takes a negative (we can’t figure out how / don’t want to hide the TrueDepth Camera and sensors under the display or put them into a thin top bezel) and turns it into a positive – look, it’s a coolly animated morphing thingamabob that just happens to look like a black pill while it’s poised to morph into its next iteration!
Apple’s “Dynamic Island” is deviously smart. We like it much more than the inelegant kludge (notch) we’ve been stuck with since 2017 with iPhone X.
(We contend that Steve Jobs would have been presented the notch, arched an eyebrow, and told whoever pitched it to go back to the drawing board. They would have worked at it until they arrived at the “Dynamic Island.” Without Steve Jobs, Apple shipped the notch for 5 years. That’s the Steve Jobs difference in a nutshell.)
So now, of course, all of the South Korean dishwasher makers (and worse) will be faking Apple’s “Dynamic Island” on their dog slow, insecure, user-tracking Android dreck within months.
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Yes, what appeared to be a ridiculous gimmick turns out to be a clever way to hide necessary evil.
Apple isn’t trying to “hide” it. Apple purposely made the “evil” screen holes into the center of attention, as a clever new exclusive feature. iPhone SE and notched iPhones won’t have it. Something only Apple could have envisioned. Too bad we had 4 years of the ugly notch before the morphing pill 💡
I still think Steve Jobs would have convinced his engineers to hide the cameras in the top bezel or in slightly wider blacked-out corners or something. The “hidden” LEDs and microphone holes on the unibody MBPs is a beauty of design we don’t often see, and that was all his pushing.
I have to admit I once I saw a video of the island I now want to visit it.
Jobs would have thought up a better name for the morphing 💊
Mighty morphing power pill
There would be not notch or pill with Jobs.
I think the screen should not go all the way to the top so the camera has its own space. Use the extra space for some phone system displays, emails, an analog clock, etc.
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The skidmarks on Sal’s underwear… genius!