5 months later, the iPhone 14 Pro’s Dynamic Island isn’t what I expected

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“Welcome to the shape-shifting, multitasking, head-spinning, game-changing iPhone experience,” says Dynamic Island’s introduction on the Apple website. While it’s a shape-shifting experience, it’s not head-turning or game-changing in any sense. And that is not “multitasking” in any way.

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Dynamic Island is nice to look at when it’s running, but after five months of its life, the feature hasn’t lived up to the promises Apple made at launch. There are plenty of them potential for that, but we’re still waiting for something to come out of it.

Dynamic Island is still not what I expected

Prakhar Khanna/Digital Trends

Apple says, “Dynamic Island blends fun and function like never before, consolidating your notifications, alerts and activities into one interactive place.” Unfortunately, it’s marketing nonsense, and the hype on paper doesn’t translate to real-life experiences.

In September 2022, I wrote that Dynamic Island works with only three of my apps — Apple Music, Spotify, and WhatsApp. I expected things to get better as time went on and more developers integrated activities into their apps. Fast forward to February 2023, and Dynamic Island is mostly pretty animation for things you already know — and that’s about it.

For example, Uber should have used Live Activities and integrated trip information for your ride at the top of your iPhone 14 Pro screen. But now all I get after booking a ride is a location icon on Dynamic Island indicating that the app is using location services in the background. It’s no different than the location icon in my notification bar in the upper left corner on any iPhone without Dynamic Island. It’s not very dynamic on the island, is it?

Dynamic Island is mostly pretty animation for things you already know — and that’s about it.

Uber reportedly started rolling out Dynamic Island support in December, but as of February 2023, it’s still nowhere to be found on my iPhone 14 Pro. It’s also not available on Digital Trends editor Joe Maring’s iPhone 14 Pro Max, even with the Uber app updated to the latest version available.

The camera cutout displays pleasant voice animations during WhatsApp chats, with colors changing depending on who is talking. The animations are nice, but they don’t have any functionality.

Prakhar Khanna/Digital Trends

The only time I interact with Dynamic Island is when I’m playing music. A long press gives me the playback controls in a small frame, and a tap on it brings me to the app. The former is no faster than swiping down from the top to access music controls via the notification screen. If that’s what it takes for Apple to label a feature as “multitasking,” it really needs to rethink the meaning of the word.

Multitasking on iPhones still seems like a distant dream because Apple considers providing musical controls over the app you’re running as “multitasking.” Dynamic Island doesn’t do something faster or something that wasn’t possible before. It doesn’t give me the ability to quickly launch the Notes app in a window and jot down my thoughts while exploring a story in Safari. It won’t let me see the ETA while using Uber.

In some ways, the Galaxy S7 Edge’s waterfall display on the right edge was more functional in 2016 than Dynamic Island was in 2023. At least it allowed me to launch one app over another, which is still not possible on iPhones.

A major problem with the app that is not being fixed

Prakhar Khanna/Digital Trends

None of the apps I use regularly support Dynamic Island – yes, zero. And I use several apps a day. To give you an idea, I bounce between Twitter, Instagram, Asana, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Gmail and more throughout the day. The only exception now is Google Maps, which displays a pop-up window for directions while navigating. Dynamic Island shows I’m on a Zoom call when I close the window, but its practicality is questionable at best.

Dynamic Island didn’t turn out the way Apple had hoped.

At launch, Apple promised that Dynamic Island would become more useful “by the end of the year.” We’re two months past our deadline and it seems to be more of a per-app issue than an Apple issue as a whole. But if there’s one company that can rally developer support to make a software feature a hit, it’s Apple. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out the way Apple had hoped.

“The dynamic island is one of the main reasons to consider the iPhone 14 Pro over the cheaper iPhone 14 and is one of the few differences if you’re considering upgrading from a recent iPhone. If it’s really only used by system apps, then its appeal falls, and with it the overall appeal of the latest phone,” Digital Trends’ Andy Boxall wrote in a December 2022 article.

But this is still true due to the slow, almost non-existent rollout of new Live Activities support for existing apps. As of February 2023, Dynamic Island’s time is running out, and it’s still not the must-have or revolutionary feature that Apple wants you to believe.