14 DAY TRIAL // One of the biggest new features available on the iPhone 14 Pro and the iPhone 14 Pro Max is the so-called Dynamic Island.
Replacing the controversial notch, the Dynamic Island isn’t just a punch-hole cutout in the screen but a mix of hardware and arsenal that comes with extra capabilities.
And as an innovation that many are likely to copy for Android devices, the Dynamic Island is something that Apple itself seems to love.
Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, and Apple's vice president of human interface design, Alan Dye, for example, praised the new feature in a recent interview with Japanese magazine Axis, describing the Dynamic Island as the biggest upgrade since the iPhone X.
“It's probably the first major operation change in five years since the iPhone X came out. Five years ago, we lost the home button with iPhone X. This has fundamentally reviewed various iPhone operation methods, such as how to unlock the lock screen, return to the Home Screen, and how to switch apps. This new feature has also changed the appearance of the iPhone, and it made me think again about how to run multiple apps, notifications, and how to manage the ongoing behavior in the background. It was a very exciting challenge for us to consolidate what is happening on our iPhone into this small interactive place,” Federighi said.
So whose idea was it? That’s hard to say, Dye explains, as the Dynamic Island has been overly-discussed behind closed doors at the Cupertino-based giant.
“At Apple, it's very difficult to trace the source of ideas. Because our work is based on a huge discussion with different groups of people. However, one of those discussions was that if the sensor area on the screen could be made smaller, what could be done with the surplus space. It's not an argument that has come out in the past year or so, but it's one of the topics that has been discussed for many years,” he said.