After five years of notches, the iPhone 14 Pro has arrived with something new. The clunkily-named “Dynamic Island” is here to give users back some more display space, as well as fulfill many new functions the notch never could.
The regular iPhone 14 still has the notch though, so you won’t get this taste of the future unless you pay out for it. However it’s still the smallest the notch has ever been on an iPhone, so you can at least be glad of that if you go for the iPhone 14 or iPhone 14 Plus.
Read on for the breakdown of what’s happening with the Face ID and camera notch for both the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro. And make sure you check out the other big new features for these new Apple phones with our iPhone 14 cameras and the iPhone 14 specs guides.
iPhone 14 notch: iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max
After lots of rumors and some back and forth on exactly how the new notch replacement would look, Apple revealed the Dynamic Island to the world at the Apple event on September 7. If you imagine the notch shaved off some of its height and then detached itself from the top of the phone, you’re pretty much there.
Rather than just leave the Face ID and camera modules as they are though, Apple’s gone to a lot of effort to make use of what would otherwise be an awkward area of the display. This is where the dynamic part of the Dynamic Island comes in.
Familiar widgets, like those for the timer or media playback, now appear within the island area when active. It means you can keep an eye on relevant information at all times rather than having to open the app or pull down the lockscreen. You can also long-tap on the island to open up the full widget when you need it.
We don’t know how useful this pill-shaped island will prove to be yet, but during our iPhone 14 Pro Max hands-on we were certainly impressed by it. It’ll likely come down to how Apple’s managed to integrate it with all the default iPhone apps, and in future how third-party devs can make use of the feature going forward.
iPhone 14 notch: iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max
While the Dynamic Island is an exciting upgrade for the iPhone 14 Pro models, the standard iPhone 14 handsets have missed out. Instead at the top of their displays they still feature the familiar notch design, albeit the slightly smaller one that Apple introduced with the iPhone 13.
It’s part of the general theme of this year’s iPhone reveal, which is the base model iPhone 14 has received scant changes compared to the iPhone 14 Pro models. At least Apple gave us something new in the form of the iPhone 14 Plus though, which splits the difference between regular and Pro iPhones.
iPhone 14 notch: outlook
Even if only some of the new iPhone 14 models sport the new Dynamic Island, it’s a pretty big deal when the world’s most prominent smartphone gets a redesign. The notched iPhone design that’s become so ubiquitous over the past five years is about to enter a gradual retirement, and the new, but just-as-unique pill-shaped cutout is here to add a new way of interacting with your iPhone apps.
For now though, it’s a shame only the Pro iPhones will be abandoning the notch. Not only does it mean less display for the regular iPhones, and even fewer new features, but it makes them look old-fashioned, even though they’re brand new.
To make up your own mind about whether the new Dynamic Island is a good idea, and if the old notch style still holds up, take a look at our iPhone 14 Plus and iPhone 14 Pro Max hands-on for a more detailed look direct from Cupertino.