Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Dynamic Island on its way to all iPhones, analyst claims

Apple will bring the new Dynamic Island to all of its iPhone 15 devices next year, according to well-regarded display industry analyst Ross Young.

In a tweet spotted by MacRumors on Sunday, Young said he expected the pill-shaped Dynamic Island to come to standard iPhones in 2023. It currently only appears with the premium iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models, and not the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus.

Related Videos

The iPhone’s Dynamic Island garnered a lot of attention — most of it positive — when Apple unveiled it at its Far Out event earlier this month. Digital Trends’ Alex Blake described it as a “delightful surprise” and was so impressed by it that it left him feeling “a little giddy.”

So what is it exactly? Well, instead of leaving the cutout as just a simple black space housing the front camera and Face ID sensors as we’ve seen with the notch, Apple went one step further and cleverly made it an integral part of the display, designing it to transform its shape when delivering snippets of useful information.

As time goes on, it’s hoped that app developers will find a multitude of interesting or fun uses for the Dynamic Island, with one already coming up with a simple game idea based on Pong, the 1970s classic that pretty much launched the video game industry. The game, called Hit The Island, has just landed in the App Store.

It’s not really a huge surprise to hear that the Dynamic Island could be coming to Apple’s better-priced phones next year, as the company likes to trickle down new features from its premium models to its standard phones over time. Such a move would also bring a more uniformed look to its handset lineup, and help to make the most of what so far seems like a popular addition to the iPhone’s design and functionality.

On other matters, Young added that due to supply chain issues, he believed Apple would hold off adding its smooth-scrolling ProMotion technology to the standard iPhones for at least a year. ProMotion offers a refresh rate of up to 120Hz instead of the standard 60Hz, bringing fluid scrolling, greater responsiveness, and smoother motion content to the display. Apple first used ProMotion for the iPad Pro in 2017 before adding it to the iPhone 13 Pro in 2021.

Editors' Recommendations

The Google Pixel Fold may not be as expensive as you thought
Alleged renders of the Google Pixel Fold in black.

Google’s long-in-development foldable phone — the Pixel Fold — is reportedly eyeing a late June launch. A recent leak predicted that the Pixel Fold will hit the European shelves priced at 1,700 Euros, which equates to roughly $1,800 based on current conversion rates. That’s not easy to digest, especially for a first-gen foldable phone and considering Google’s own shaky history with its Pixel hardware and software.
But it appears that the Pixel Fold’s price won’t be inexplicably exorbitant at all. Leaker Yogesh Bear shared on Twitter that the foldable phone could actually cost anywhere between $1,300 and $1,500. Assuming that turns out to be true, the Pixel Fold could undercut the Samsung Galaxy Fold 4 and its successor by a healthy $500.

In fact, such an asking price would put the Pixel Fold in roughly the same ballpark as the higher storage configurations of phones like the Galaxy S23 Ultra and Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro Max. Of course, Google won’t be able to match the asking price of foldables from Chinese brands, but it would at least look competitive in the Western markets.
Now, a price of around $1,300-1,500 makes a lot of sense. First, the biggest deterrent for foldable phones is their high asking price. There’s a reason Samsung managed to sell bucketloads of its flip-style foldable phones because they cost nearly half vis-a-vis the phone-tablet hybrids in the Galaxy Z Fold series.

Read more
6 years later, the iPhone X still does one thing better than the iPhone 14 Pro
iPhone X.

I’ve been an iPhone user since the very beginning, starting with the original iPhone. You know, the one with the 3.5-inch display that was perfect at the time, making it super easy to use a phone with one hand? As the years go by, the iPhone — and every other smartphone out there — just get bigger and bigger. We now have phones that with almost 7-inch displays, and honestly, I don’t understand how anyone can comfortably use these giant phones — especially if you have smaller hands!

With the iPhone, we’ve gone from 3.5-inch to 4-inches, then 4.7-inches to 5.8-inches, and now the standard 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch of the iPhone 14/iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Plus/iPhone 14 Pro Max, respectively. I personally use an iPhone 14 Pro as my primary device, and while I have gotten used to the 6.1-inch size over the past few years, I still think it’s too big. In fact, the last perfect size iPhone was the iPhone XS with the 5.8-inch display ... and I really wish Apple would bring it back.
5.8 inches was a perfect middle ground

Read more
Google Pixel 8: all the latest rumors and what we want to see
Google Pixel 8 leaked render.

The Google Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are on their way. Google's fallen in a pretty reliable release pattern for Pixel phones, meaning we can safely expect a new lineup of flagship Pixels each year. In 2023, that means the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro.

The Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro are two excellent devices -- possibly two of the best smartphones Google has ever made. But while they have some serious strengths, a number of problems and missed opportunities drag both phones down. This wouldn't be a problem if the competition was standing still, but it's not. The Apple iPhone 14 Pro refreshed the iPhone design for the first time in years, and the recently released Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is quite possibly one of the best smartphones ever created. So what's a humble Pixel to do?

Read more