Apple Finally Ditches Notch, Introduces New Take on Hole-Punch Cameras

Apple finally announced its latest batch of iPhones earlier today during its event held in Cupertino, California. The American tech giant introduced four new phones in the form of the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, and a higher-spec’d tier with the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. One notable thing about the Pro models in particular, however, is the introduction of the “Dynamic Island,” a new approach to hole-punch cameras.

Since the introduction of hole-punch displays a few years back, a number of Android manufacturers have sought different ways to achieve a cleaner display look, moving away from notches and waterdrop cut-outs for their front-facing camera placements, and instead resorting to singular camera holes on phone screens, resulting in wider screen sizes. Apple however stubbornly refused to adopt this design language, and instead stuck with the infamous notch for five generations of its iPhones.

While the regular 14 and 14 Plus iPhones still retain the notch, the Pro models instead ditch the thick forehead landing strip for a rather clever approach to the hole punch. As mentioned earlier, Apple calls it the Dynamic Island, and it changes function and appearance based on how it’s being used in whatever app a user might have running at the time. The Dynamic Island switches up its size when receiving notifications, or when you have a timer app running in the background, for example. 

Users can also interact with the Island by tapping and sliding on it for example, as it responds to touch inputs depending on which app is currently open. It also contains the main front camera, Face ID technology, as well as a proximity sensor that’s built right into the screen. With that said, however, it’s still wider than most hole-punch cut-outs on a majority of Android phones out there, and actually reminds us of earlier times with the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus.

Nevertheless, it’s a rather interesting and unique take on how smartphones can utilize hole-punch cut-outs. At the moment, only time will tell how effective of an implementation this will be, but it’s nice to see Apple finally getting with the times and offering a more refreshed take on its smartphone displays.

Now if we could only get USB-C.