If you’ve been closely following news about the new iPhone 14 series, you have likely seen what Apple has dubbed the ‘Dynamic Island’, a black cutout on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
This cutout replaces the much-derided ‘notch’ that had long remained on high-end iPhones since the iPhone X arrived in 2017. The standard iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus still have the notch, but could the Dynamic Island hold promise for marketers?
What exactly is the Dynamic Island?
When the Dynamic Island isn’t actually in use, it is simply a pill-shaped cutout that sits on top of the various sensors comprising the Face ID biometric authentication system. However, when you do start using the Island, it certainly lives up to the ‘Dynamic’ part of its moniker.
That’s because it can change in shape and size in response to actions from the user, allowing this panel to display quite the range of information.
For example, it is through the Dynamic Island that the Apple Music, Spotify and Audible apps can currently provide information about what the user is listening to — such as a song, podcast or audiobook.
The Dynamic Island is also capable of showing live information along the lines of live scores for football matches or real-time details of how long you can expect to have to wait for the arrival of a takeaway you have ordered or a cab you have booked.
How could brands take advantage of the Dynamic Island?
It’s worth acknowledging that, at the time of writing, Apple hasn’t yet made available all the tools app developers would need in order to leverage the Dynamic Island in the optimum fashion.
For example, if your company currently has an iOS app, you won’t be able to use it to display live information in the Dynamic Island until Apple has updated iOS 16 with the required frameworks, which will fall under the banner of what Apple has called Live Activities.
However, even if your company lacks any such app, Dynamic Island could still prove surprisingly useful for you. For example, your brand could start its own podcast that is made available via apps that support Dynamic Island.
That way, the cover art for the podcast could appear in the interface, enabling you to enhance your brand’s visibility even when the user isn’t actively engaging with Dynamic Island. If they do interact with it, the cover art can expand in size, enhancing the promotional effect.
How could we help you?
We could do this by asking graphic designers from the Webahead team to design you graphics that could then be slapped on, say, the above-mentioned podcast or an album or audiobook accessible via a Dynamic Island-supporting app.
We can carefully heed the specifications required for creating graphics that would look good in this part of the iOS 16 interface.
With the Dynamic Island looking likely to feature — or be replicated — on many other phones in the future, you could benefit from sourcing suitably optimised imagery sooner rather than later.
