Why doesn't Apple bring Dynamic Island to MacBook Pro?

[maverick786us]

Though I am not a big fan of Dynamic Island, but I find that feature really amazing, though I don't own an iPhone 14 Pro Max. Apple did a great job by implementing camera notch on M1 MacBook Pro series. What I don't understand is why Apple doesn't bring Dynamic Island to MacBook Pro? After its success in iPhone Pro 14 Pro Max, they could have implemented this feature in M2 MacBook Pro.

 

[dmccloud]

While Dynamic Island works great on a phone IMO, it would actually be much worse on a Mac desktop, especially for those who prefer to run apps in either full screen or maximized windows. The last thing most users would want is the dynamic island blocking part of the app they are using, especially if that is a toolbar (for apps like Pages, Word, the Affinity or Adobe suites, etc.) or an address bar (web browsers).

 

[maverick786us]

While Dynamic Island works great on a phone IMO, it would actually be much worse on a Mac desktop, especially for those who prefer to run apps in either full screen or maximized windows. The last thing most users would want is the dynamic island blocking part of the app they are using, especially if that is a toolbar (for apps like Pages, Word, the Affinity or Adobe suites, etc.) or an address bar (web browsers).

Some part of the full screen is already taken away when they replaced the top bezel with the camera notch. If they replace it with some tablet hole to add dynamic island feature, how much will it affect the apps? Yes I realized that MacBook's don't receive notifications like iPhones, so expanding the island will be less significance

 

[estabya]

Some part of the full screen is already taken away when they replaced the top bezel with the camera notch. If they replace it with some tablet hole to add dynamic island feature, how much will it affect the apps? Yes I realized that MacBook's don't receive notifications like iPhones, so expanding the island will be less significance

Technically the vertical pixels that contain the notch add additional height outside the “usable” 16:10 aspect ratio. You don’t really lose space, for example the 13” M2 MacBook Air has the same usable screen space as previous 13” machines because Apple increased the vertical pixel count from 1600 to 1664 to account for the notch. I 100% agree a dynamic island seems like it could be a potential evolution for the Mac.

It is hard to say if the dynamic island fits with what Apple is doing on the Mac at the moment and the technology available (I.e. Face ID) for such a thin/tiny area. It may remain confined to the iPhone and/or iPad. That being said, Apple almost always uses iPhone to introduce its newest tech and then it trickles down to other product lines.

Only Apple knows…

 

[Pakaku]

The notch is flat enough to fit inside the height of the toolbar. Why waste more space, especially the usable part of the screen?

 

[Big Apple Tim]

The title should probably read "Why doesn't Apple bring Dynamic Island to MacBook Pro?"

The way you've phrased it reads like you're going to explain to us your theory why they haven't.

 

[n-evo]

The notch is flat enough to fit inside the height of the toolbar. Why waste more space, especially the usable part of the screen?

Apple did increase the thickness of the Menu Bar (that's what it's called btw) to accommodate the notch. In its default state why would a Dynamic Island on Mac occupy more vertical space compared to the notch?

While Dynamic Island works great on a phone IMO, it would actually be much worse on a Mac desktop, especially for those who prefer to run apps in either full screen or maximized windows. The last thing most users would want is the dynamic island blocking part of the app they are using, especially if that is a toolbar (for apps like Pages, Word, the Affinity or Adobe suites, etc.) or an address bar (web browsers).

macOS is designed to deal with that since Apple introduced the new MacBook Pro with notch. An app's toolbar can't expand to the row currently preoccupied by the notch. A full-screen app only occupies the space underneath the notch. Why would it be any different with a Dynamic Island? I can see how things would become a bit more complicated for the Menu Bar when the there's a shift in width, as is the case with the Dynamic Island. But I'm sure they'd think of something. Limit the horizontal space the Dynamic Island can expand to per example. When the notch expands vertically it's only a second or two.

 

[dmccloud]

Apple did increase the thickness of the Menu Bar (that's what it's called btw) to accommodate the notch. In its default state why would a Dynamic Island on Mac occupy more vertical space compared to the notch?


macOS is designed to deal with that since Apple introduced the new MacBook Pro with notch. An app's toolbar can't expand to the row currently preoccupied by the notch. A full-screen app only occupies the space underneath the notch. Why would it be any different with a Dynamic Island? I can see how things would become a bit more complicated for the Menu Bar when the there's a shift in width, as is the case with the Dynamic Island. But I'm sure they'd think of something. Limit the horizontal space the Dynamic Island can expand to per example. When the notch expands vertically it's only a second or two.

Two issues. First, the Dynamic Island is not located along the top edge of the iPhone, but around 1/4" below the top edge. Assuming the same placement on a Mac, that means that it would be located either entirely below the menu bar (taking away part of the usable area of the display and possibly interfere with many apps, including those from Adobe [Creative Suite], Microsoft [Office, VS Code], and Affinity,). The second issue would be that since the Dynamic Island resizes to accommodate notifications, it would be effectively blocking even more usable area. If Apple did decide to keep the Dynamic Island along the top edge like the notch currently is, they would then face issues where the notch blocks menu items and other things people have running in the menubar.

 

[n-evo]

You're right. I hadn't realized that the Dynamic Island's bottom is located lower compared to the bottom part of the notch. Making the Menu Bar even thicker to accommodate it or with the dynamic island protruding from the Menu Bar, or it being located completely outside the Menu Bar's space would be undesirable. If they can't create a Dynamic Island so it occupies the space of the current notch that is.

I do feel the second issue could be addressed by either limiting the space the Dynamic Island can expand to and/or create an overflow menu for Menu Bar menus and items. I feel macOS currently handles that pretty inelegantly with the notch as well.

 

[maverick786us]

You're right. I hadn't realized that the Dynamic Island's bottom is located lower compared to the bottom part of the notch. Making the Menu Bar even thicker to accommodate it or with the dynamic island protruding from the Menu Bar, or it being located completely outside the Menu Bar's space would be undesirable. If they can't create a Dynamic Island so it occupies the size of the current notch that is.

I do feel the second issue could be addressed by either limiting the space the Dynamic Island can expand to and/or create an overflow menu for Menu Bar menus and items. I feel macOS currently handles that pretty inelegantly with the notch as well.

With MacOS Sonama, Apple will implement widgets on the OS. So they can use that dynamic island as a widget that will be on top of all the apps (Somewhere around the tablet hole of the camera) during notification and will slowly fade

 

[dmccloud]

With MacOS Sonama, Apple will implement widgets on the OS. So they can use that dynamic island as a widget that will be on top of all the apps (Somewhere around the tablet hole of the camera) during notification and will slowly fade

That still leads to issues where the Dynamic Island expanding and contracting could (at least temporarily) block parts of the menubar and/or Application controls, which is not an optimal outcome for the majority of users.

 

[Pakaku]

Apple did increase the thickness of the Menu Bar (that's what it's called btw) to accommodate the notch. In its default state why would a Dynamic Island on Mac occupy more vertical space compared to the notch?

I would assume moving it downwards would mean having to extend the toolbar even further to accommodate that, which would take away usable screen space, and that matters more on a mac since the screen size is way larger/wider in comparison. There would also be wasted space above the camera, since that's where the toolbar is anyways. Also worth noting that it’s intended to mesh with the notification bubbles on an iPhone, whereas Mac notifications are always in the top corner, probably to avoid getting in the way as much as possible.

 

[FrozenDarkness]

maybe bring faceid first.

 

[hch720]

Yes please. bring it to iPad and MacBook