In 2022, at its annual September Event, Apple revealed the iPhone 14 Pro- sporting a new design that has become commonplace for its flagship “Pro” devices. The change this year focused on the screen and the introduction of the Dynamic Island. A space that was, as Apple put it, “..integrated throughout iOS — and works with lots of different apps — to seamlessly surface what you need, right when you need it.” At launch, it didn’t do much of anything besides surface system-level status changes like confirming if the Ring/Silent switch was in the Ring or Silent position, showing when Focus modes were changing, or expanding out to surface an incoming phone call. 

With the introduction of iOS 16.1 the following month, Apple brought support for the Live Activities API which could show the real-time status of a particular event right on your Lock Screen or, if you had the iPhone 14 Pro, right in the Dynamic Island. Here we are 6 months later and many power users on various Apple forums and tabloid websites have claimed that Apple should move all app notifications to Dynamic Island. Today, I want to discuss why I think that would be a bad idea. 

The Dynamic Island has 4 design views that developers need to account for. 

1. Default View- the default shape and size of Dynamic Island that encapsulates the TrueDepth Camera system. Tapping or long pressing results in no action. 
2. Compact View- when a single Live Activity is running, information can be presented on both the left (leading side) and right sides (trailing side) of the TrueDepth Camera system. Tapping Dynamic Island will open the app and long pressing the app will open up the…
3. Expanded View- this view presents a higher level of detail and takes up most of the width of the screen and up to approximately one-sixth of the vertical screen real estate. 
4. Minimal View- if two or more Live Activities are running, information will be presented on the left side (leading side) or right side (trailing side). Tapping on one or the other will open that respective app and long pressing will open the Expanded View. 

In addition to the above four views, users can swipe across Dynamic Island to minimize or expand the information. 

Looking at notifications, that system currently works by a notification banner dropping down from the top of the screen, usually sitting for a few seconds right below Dynamic Island, and then it disappears by returning to the top of the display to be accessed later by navigating to Notification by pulling down from almost anywhere at the top of the screen. The notification can be accessed by going to where it disappeared to. Notifications can be expanded when long-pressed, but this functionality has been reduced in recent versions of iOS. 

Having detailed all that, I think the problem with integrating notifications into Dynamic Island is revealing itself. There is no available space or gesture available to reveal or display notifications by interacting with Dynamic Island. And there is an almost perfectly clear system in place for accessing Notification Center as is. 

It is possible Apple could rework Notification Center to become a Live Activity, so when a notification surfaces on a users device the Dynamic Island expands out to the Compact View or Minimal View to show how many notifications are in Notification Center and then tapping and holding on the Dynamic Island expands it out to black the entire screen and lists all a user’s notifications. This would be visually worse than what we have currently and require Apple to dramatically rework the Live Activity and Notifications APIs. 

Considering the above facts, I don’t believe there is any need for Apple to change the current Notifications setup or change the way Dynamic Island works. I would rather Apple focus its efforts on cleaning up some of the visual errors that can occur with the Dynamic Island or clean up or even work to improve the Status Bar which shares its space with Dynamic Island.