Is Apple’s New Dynamic Island “Good UX”?
I need to thank my good friend Nate Schloesser for dragging me into the conversation.
First of all, everyone needs to know: I’m a complete apple Fan-boy. That means my judgment is clouded. Very, clouded.
The Buzz
Apple has created an enormous buzz with this clever little dynamic island concept. It’s new. It’s flashy. And, in true Apple fashion, they’ve crafted a great sales story around it. So, naturally, people are freaking out because it’s perceived as something new. Some people love it and others hate it.
The smartphone industry introduced notches and pills to increase the measurable screen size. So, Apple has introduced the constraint of pill and notch (but, so did everyone else). Design has to consider and create for what’s feasible. And at this point in history, we don’t have feasible technology to completely hide the camera and ear-hole to provide an edge-to-edge display. So, this is an example of Apple’s classic iterative development process.
What’s “surprising” is that Apple decided to evolve both the hardware (with the pill shape) and the UX of the software (the dynamic island). Again, this is unique to apple because they control both the software and the hardware production. They are evolving the form of notifications with this new experience while distracting you from the less-than-desirable (ugly?) form factor of the hardware: the pill. I can imagine Neo looking at the new iPhone 14 Pro and Apple saying, “there is no pill.”
Is it Good UX?
This is iterative change at its finest. It’s what apple is known for. So, it leaves us with the question: Is it good UX or innovation? Well, we need to define “good”:
- If good = progress towards a better UX, then yes, it’s good.
- If good = showing new clever uses of space and animation then yes, it’s good.
- If good = producing a phone screen that isn’t obstructed by a pill-shaped hole, then no, it’s not good UX. But it does hide it, which gets us closer to the feeling of a full, unobstructed screen.
And I think that’s the crux of the issue. Apple has found a clever way to disguise a hole in the screen. Where some phones just own the hole, Apple has found a way to minimize the hole’s visibility. Apple has turned a constraint into an opportunity. The constraint of an ugly hole became an opportunity to experiment with a notification area that disguises an uncomfortable, ugly floating hole in the screen.
🤷🏼♂️ What do you think?
I’d love to know what other folks think. In my apple-fan-boy mode, I “like” it, because it masks the pill cleverly and makes me feel like they’ve achieved the full-screen, edge-to-edge display that sets them apart even though it’s just smoke and mirrors.
But, I know my judgment is clouded. The real test will be in my day-to-day use when I buy a new iPhone 14 Pro…so I can have that new fancy Dynamic Island. (Which should make you wonder even more about its purpose.)
At the end of the day, Apple is trying to make a great product that people love. Over time, the market will show us whether Apple and the buyers believe it’s “good”.
