Apple executives discuss iPhone 14 Pro’s dynamic island in new interview

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Apple executives discuss iPhone 14 Pro's dynamic island in new interview

In a new interview, Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, and Alan Dye, Apple’s vice president of human interface design, sat down to discuss the thinking behind the iPhone 14 Pro’s Dynamic Island and how it was developed .


During the interview with the Japanese magazine axisFederighi, who oversees the development of iOS, said that Dynamic Island marks the first major user experience change for the iPhone since the “iPhone” X five years ago.

It’s probably the first major operational change in five years since the iPhone X came out. Five years ago, with the iPhone X, we lost the home button. As a result, various iPhone operation methods were fundamentally checked, e.g. Such as unlocking the lock screen, returning to the home screen, and switching apps. This new feature also changed the look and feel of the iPhone, making me reconsider how to run multiple apps and notifications, and how to manage ongoing behavior in the background. It was a very exciting challenge for us to consolidate what is happening on our iPhone into this small interactive place.

Dye, who presented Dynamic Island during Apple’s Far Out event last month, said Dynamic Island continues to blur the line between the end of hardware and the beginning of software on the “iPhone,” citing it as an example of “Apple -similar development”.

On the one hand, our hardware and software partners come together in the same studio to solve the problem together. This new feature also made it possible to view real-time alerts, notifications and ongoing operations without seeing the boundary between hardware and software. I think it’s a good example of Apple-like development.

Speaking about where the idea of ​​Dynamic Island came from, Dye said the team had been thinking about what the extra real estate at the top of the display, thanks to the smaller TrueDepth camera system, could be used for.

At Apple, it’s very difficult to trace the source of ideas. Because our work is based on a large discussion with different groups of people. However, one of those discussions was that if the sensor area on the screen could be made smaller, what could be done with the excess space. It’s not an argument that’s come out in the last year or so, but it’s one of the issues that’s been debated for many years.

Dye said the status bar area is a small but critically important part of the “iPhone” experience. “It’s an area where our hard work that goes into every pixel has a very big effect,” Dye said. “Well, there was a story anyway about doing something special in that area. Something that is very elegant and yet very useful.”

To make this experience feel so smooth and natural, we refreshed it with meticulous care and skill on both sides of design and engineering. Our goal was to make them forget that there is static physical hardware and think that the whole thing is fluid, dynamic software.

Federighi noted that during the “iPhone 14 Pro” event at Apple Park’s Steve Jobs Theater, there was an audible sense of surprise when Dynamic Island was first unveiled, and said he had the same reaction when he saw it for the first time first looked inside. “Personally, I felt like there was a new life-saving identity on my ‘iPhone,'” Federighi said. “It’s a very delicate animation effect, but it’s a little different from anthropomorphism, but I think it brought a new strong personality and vitality to ‘iPhone’.”

Since its launch, Dynamic Island has received positive reactions from users and customers online, with some calling it one of Apple’s best designs in years. Some Android manufacturers are already trying to replicate the Dynamic Island experience on other smartphones.

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