Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max introduce the Dynamic Island. If you find this feature too distracting, here’s how you can disable it.
With the launch of the iPhone 14 Pro, Apple introduced the Dynamic Island to its highest-end iPhone line. So whether you have the 6.1-inch iPhone 14 Pro or the 6.7-inch Pro Max variant, you can take advantage of this innovative masterpiece. For those unfamiliar with this notch replacement, it acts as a window displaying relevant live activities or timely information. For example, if you’re playing music, it’ll display the album art. Similarly, if you’re keeping up with a certain sports game, it’ll display the live scores. What’s great about it is that you can even press and hold on it to enlarge it to interact with the activity being displayed. Expectedly, not everyone is a fan of this feature. So if you plan to buy an iPhone 14 Pro and are wondering if you can disable it, here’s what you need to know.
Unfortunately, for the time being, there’s no way to completely disable the Dynamic Island. However, you can temporarily hide it by swiping on it horizontally. This will disable the Dynamic Island for as long as the live activity session lasts. Next time a live activity is initiated, the Dynamic Island will reappear. To show the Dynamic Island again during the same session, swipe horizontally on the screen cutout again.
Personally, I don’t hide the Dynamic Island because I typically depend on it to control the music I’m listening to. Nonetheless, I sometimes find myself hiding it when I’m trying to focus on a certain task. So it reappearing by default is the behavior that works best for me personally, as I’d expect it to resurface the following music playback session. We certainly hope that Apple caters to more users and includes a dedicated toggle that permanently hides it as part of iOS 17.
