I don’t think Dynamic Island is a bad name, but I believe it is not much relatable to what it is. Maybe Apple could have kept a better name but let’s keep this thing aside and discuss more on this new feature that Apple launched with its iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models.
The iPhone Notch Criticism
iPhone was the first to introduced the notch back in 2017. And it was an effort made to utilise the upper useless area, above the screen of the phone into the screen area. As you can easily see in the below picture.
But It was highly controversial among mobile enthusiasts. What I like about Apple is that they know what they are doing and you will rarely see any downgrade/change in the designs after a jump. As a result, the iPhone again turned out to be a trendsetter and Android phones also adopted the designs to such an extent that currently any phone below the notch design is not even expected to be purchased.
Various Android brands even took the design more further by introducing Punch holes, Pop up cameras and much more.
Why Apple couldn’t remove the notch for more than 4 Years?
As we discussed that Android Manufacturers started taking the designs further by introducing Drop Notch, and Punch holes, which took much lesser space on display and increased the screen view even further. Then brands like OnePlus brought a popup camera with its OnePlus 7Pro which didn’t take up any space on display offering a full view to users. But what is Apple doing with its notch?
Such questions started coming from all around. You like or you hate but you can’t deny that iPhone is the most spotlight mobile that everyone keeps eye on. And I am sure Apple have also heard such questions about their notch. That’s why with every next generation they tried to make the notch smaller and smaller.
There are a few reasons why apple didn’t switch to Drop notch, Punch hole or Popup
Apple likes to be stable with its design
You must have seen Android brands very frequently change their designs with every new phone they launch. Some may like this approach as they get to see varieties while some may not, like me. Because I believe it hinders brand value. Apple is the kind of brand that takes design and brand value very seriously. So if they take to accept a new upgrade in design they would not like to go back to what they left in the previous generation of iPhone, most of the time.
How it hinders brand value?
This could be subjective. But I personally feel when you keep changing the designs very often, you send a message to customers that you don’t have confidence with your designs and that is why you keep doing experiments.
Experiments are good but you are making products for the end users so it would be much better if we try to keep end users out of our experiments as much as possible. Because they deserves the best.
A simple example would be the OnePlus 7Pro and ONEPLUS 8Pro (I have not mistakenly written oneplus in two variations, Oneplus changed their logo before the 8 series was launched). OnePlus Introduced a Popup camera on the OnePlus 7Pro which in terms of screen view is the best possible that any phone can give to its users but with the 8Pro they used Punch Hole. This is technically a downgrade because it again starts dealing with screen view issues which they skipped with the pop-up camera.
Complex Hardware built in Notch
Apple Notch had Speaker, Front Camera and Face ID Technology built in. Speaker, Front Camera is something that every brand has to deal with. But the Face ID Technology is something that is only available on Apple Devices.
Don’t get me wrong the latest Android phones are also coming with Face Unlock – which is the Android way to deal with Face Unlock but it is totally dependent on the front camera’s capability without any additional hardware as of now. And it is still in development, way behind Apple’s Face ID in several terms.
Thus if Apple has to remove the notch where will they shift all the hardware that comes within it? That would be an interesting thing to look out for in future iPhones.
Dynamic Island Embracing the Notch
Every brand focused on skipping, hiding, or making the notch smaller so that users can simply ignore it. With iPhone as we discussed, it would have been difficult. So they thought to embrace it. Yes, there’s a black part that exists on screen. And users instead of feeling sad or bad should love it.
Here’s the Dynamic Island
Just to give a little introduction to Dynamic Island. It is a pill-shaped black area on the screen that consists of necessary hardware that use to be in notch along with software integration consolidating notifications, alerts and activities in one particular place.
Check out this official video on iPhone 14 Pro Dynamic Island by Apple
Also an interesting tweet that explore the behaviour of dynamic island
Is Apple ready to be a trendsetter with iPhone’s Dynamic Island again?
The past has given us some hint that there is a high chance other Android brands might try the same route as Dynamic Island. But if they don’t do still that is not a problem because Dynamic Island was to embrace the iPhone notch Nowadays most Android phones come with a Puch hole thus there is no need to introduce something like Dynamic Island on Android.
Although one possibility that could happen is that Android might upgrade the current status bar, notification stack, and music player notification to something similar to Dynamic island.
So the need of Android phones to launch Dynamic island might be different but it may add value to it as well.
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