The Dynamic Island is one of the best features on the iPhone, and one that is very likely to make its way to an Android device very soon.
In this post, I want to show you what the Dynamic Island is, how to get the most out of it both with the stock Apple apps, as well as some incredible third party apps, and, I'll tell you about some fun ways to use the Dynamic Island.
Turning it on
To start with, make sure that it’s actually enabled - because I recently made a video and, some of the comments said they couldn’t get the Dynamic Island to work for them, that's because most of the time it’s not actually switched on for the apps they want to use it for.
So to do this, you need to head into Settings, then into the App you want to use on the Dynamic Island, and enable the Live Activities toggle because both Dynamic Island AND Live Activities are tied together with this toggle.
And with that enabled, that App now has permission to use the Dynamic island.
Getting Started
So to get started with the Dynamic Island, you can open up an app such as the Music App but this also works in any music app like Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Then simply swipe up from the bottom as if you want to go back to your home screen, and you will see the Music, and then slide up into the Dynamic Island.
You can see the album artwork for the track that’s currently playing, you also get a visual waveform of the track that’s playing, which is also coloured to match the album artwork.
Then if you tap and hold anywhere in the dynamic island, you can play, pause, and favourite, and on Apple Music, change the Audio Source.
If you tap once on the dynamic island, it will launch the app back to full screen.
How to use the Dynamic Island
If for any reason you don’t want to see that up there in the Dynamic Island, you can actually swipe to either the left or right in the Dynamic island, and it will then hide whatever is showing, because maybe for example you want to see how much phone signal you have because it’s taking up too much space up the top there.
Weird Issues
Now let's talk about some odd behaviour with using the Dynamic Island, because it doesn’t behave the same every time.
Setting a Timer
If you head into the Clock App and start a timer, then swipe up, sometimes it will split the Dynamic Island into 2 and show both Music and the Timer, and sometimes it will only display one.
How to swipe between Apps
Now, you ‘Should’ be able to swipe left and right to switch between one app and another, possibly two Dynamic Apps at the same time. But like I said, sometimes it will lose one and only show you the most recent one. Other times it will let you see both.
But at most it will only show you two things in the top, it will never show 3 or more apps in the Dynamic Island because there just isn’t space. And also that only applies if they are 2 different apps. You can’t have 2 timers for example.
Timers
Speaking of Timers, timers are one of the best examples of both the Dynamic Island and Live Activities of how practical and useful this can all be.
Last weekend I rented a house in Newquay with all of my friends to stay together for my 40th Birthday.
All I did was set a timer on my iPhone, so any time I wanted to check how long I had left on my parking ticket, I could glance at the always on display of my iPhone without even picking it up, and see how much time was left.
It’s these sorts of activities which are SO useful. You don’t have to pick up your phone and launch the app each time to see the timer.
Parking Apps
With a lot of Parking Apps, this feature is actually built in to them. So, for example, if you use an App to pay for parking at various locations, when you swipe up to go back to the home screen, you will actually get a countdown timer appear in the Dynamic Island to show you when it runs out. And because it’s using an App, if you wanted to extend your parking, you can simply hop into the app and do that.
Not like in Newquay where I had to physically go back to the car, buy another ticket, go place it on my dashboard then run back to everyone.
Screen Recording
If you ever record your screen, that also displays in the Dynamic Island so you can just start the screen recording. Tap or tap and hold, which is something many people don’t realise - is a way to actually pause the screen recording whenever you tap on the dynamic island.
And then when you’re finished, you can just hit the stop button to stop and save that recording.
Airplay
So the Dynamic Island is here to be practical and useful to you, without taking over and being a distraction, like if you have an AirPlay speaker like an Apple HomePod or HomePod Mini near you, and if you’re playing music, it will quietly pop up at the top to ask if you wanted to play on that speaker. You can either ignore it, or swipe up to dismiss it, or tap it to have whichever app you are using Airplay to that speakers.
Airpods
Airpods also show up on the Dynamic Island when you open up the case, it’ll show the battery level of your Airpods which is really useful to have a quick check to know if you need to charge them or maybe go charge the case, as well as let you know that your Airpods are connected.
This works for all Apple headphones, and also includes some of the recent Beats headphones like the PowerBeats Pro 2’s which have Apple’s H2 chip in them.
Torch / Flashlight
The Torch or Flashlight app is also one of the stock iPhone apps which many people don’t realise, but with the torch, or flashlight switched on, you can actually control the brightness by swiping up and down, as well as the width by swiping left and right. And it will remember this each time, so if you want it really dim and wide, then you can set it once and unless it bugs out for any reason, it will stay like that the next time you switch it on.
Rounding off the Official Apple apps now.
Navigation
Navigation is also supported. If you start navigating somewhere, it will go up into the Dynamic Island to give you some basic directions. It also applies to Google Maps as well as Apple Maps.
And for those of you using public transport, I find this works best with Google Maps right now, but when you navigate somewhere using public transport, in the Dynamic Island it will show you the time of the next bus that you need to catch, and I believe it also updates this if the bus gets delayed which if true, is pretty cool.
Phone Calls
Phone Calls also place themselves into the Dynamic island so you can answer a call and it will minimise itself into the Dynamic Island whilst you continue talking.
You can then see how long the call has been running for, along with a waveform, similar to when listening to music, that responds to your voice when on the call. And if you tap and hold, you can tap the speaker to change the audio source that it’s playing on, which can be really useful at times when maybe you’re in the car or wearing headphones and it doesn’t connect to whatever you want to be hearing the call on. That’s a quick and easy way to get there.
You can also tap to end the call.
FaceID
FaceID also makes use of the Dynamic Island - a nice simple animation that visualises the FaceID process.
It’s great - my only issue here is that I feel like this slows the phone down in some cases, like if you want to download multiple apps, or head into apps with extra security like Banking Apps or maybe Password Manager apps where it requires FaceID each time, then waiting for the FaceID animation to play out just feels a little unnecessary and slows down the process.
Personal Hotspot
Personal Hotspot is another really useful one for the Dynamic Island - a lot of the time I tend to leave my personal hotspot on and then when I’m travelling in the car with my kids, all of a sudden I’ll realise that one of them is connected to my hotspot and is now streaming or downloading something, which would then kill my iPhones battery even faster than it usually does. So having this quiet reminder at the top is neat to be able to see and then basically remind me to switch it off.
Voice Memo
And there’s also the voice memo which I’ve seen a lot of people map to their Action Button, as a quick way to be able to record voice notes. In the Dynamic Island you can see the wave form whilst you are recording as well as hit the stop button to finish.
The Coolest Third Party Apps
But some of the best Apps that support the Dynamic Island and that I use MORE than Apple’s own apps, aren’t even from Apple, they’re from third parties. So I’m going to run through a number of the ones I’ve found most useful and hopefully they help you too.
The first TWO of these are actually from comments on a recent video on my YouTube channel, so a huge thank you for letting me know what apps you use the Dynamic Island for - same again, head down to the comments in this post and let me know what your favourite apps are.
Diabetics
The first one is an app called Shuggah, and this app allows you to show your blood glucose levels in the Dynamic Island, which for those of you wearing a glucose patch know, is a hugely important thing for you to monitor.
Flighty & Planefinder
One of the most useful third party apps that I’ve come across, and I would almost call it an essential app, is an app called Flighty.
I’m actually flying back from Vivatech in Paris next week so I need to add that flight into my Dynamic Island.
All I need to do is paste in my booking reference, and it will pull all of the information about that flight, as well as monitor for any changes, into the App.
I can go and add my Seat number in there, whether I’m flying Economy whether it’s a Business or Personal Trip.
Then, a few hours before my flight, it will appear in the Dynamic Island, and show me key information such as my Gate number, my seat number, which is super useful when you’re rushing around an airport and onto the plane.
You can even share your flights with other people - I always share my upcoming flights with my wife and it will pop up on HER phone with updates on when my flight is due to land.
And not just that, but Flighty also monitors for changes and delays to your flights, and I tend to find that I know that my flight has been delayed or even cancelled in some situations, before it updates both the boards around the airport as well as even when checking the flights status in it’s own companies app.
I love that even though there are paid for features with this app, you can subscribe for just a week or two weeks to cover a one-off trip or vacation.
Planefinder
Planefinder is another really great app for the Dynamic Island and it works in a similar way. It will show you the status, if the flight is running late, how long it has left, the gate number - all of the useful information.
And for anyone who is interested in what’s happening up in the sky right now, it’s a fascinating app to be able to see all the planes, what type they are, where they’re heading.
They make it easy for you to find things like aerial displays when you’re stood there waiting and wondering when the red arrows might show up, you can literally follow them on the app to know the exact moment they’ll be passing above you. super cool.
Hevy & Gym Apps
I use this next one on a nearly daily basis, and I’m sure there are a number of them that do the same thing - but my chosen app for working out at the gym is Heavy - because it has this whole kinda social media feed where you can follow others and see when they’ve worked out, what they did, you can like and comment, and even compare your workout routine to others.
It's a really good app to get inspiration. By the way, follow me @petematheson on Hevy, I’m also on Strava as well, for some reason. I haven’t really figured out why yet.
Generally speaking I just use it to plan my workouts and then follow them along each time I workout. It tells me what weight I did last time I did that exercise, how many reps, how difficult I found it.
And one part of those workouts is resting between sets, normally whilst listening to music and probably mindlessly scrolling through my emails or social media.
So having a countdown timer counting down in the Dynamic island, is SUPER useful because whilst I am mindlessly scrolling, I can see that I’ve only got a few more seconds before I need to get on with my routine and before I annoy someone else who’s probably waiting for a turn on whatever I’m on right now.
Uber / Lyft
Uber is another really useful one, along with a number of other transport AND food delivery services too.
It will show the time until your ride or food arrived, which is really useful because if you’re waiting for an Uber or your food, then you’re probably playing on your phone already, so it’s nice to not have to keep going in and out of the app to check how far away it is.
With Uber, when you are in the car, it shows the time that you’ll arrive, and if you tap and hold, you get more of a progress indicator that also shows where you are in your journey.
Carrot Weather
This next one is useful for us brits here in the UK - it’s Carrot Weather, and aside from being one of the best and funniest weather apps I’ve ever used, it’s also able to display how long it is until it starts raining if it’s due in something like the next hour or so. This is really useful - obviously it will just depend on how accurate the weather forecast is for your location.
Customise the Dynamic Island
You can even Customise the Dynamic Island by using a Third Party App called Shelf.
And with this, you can do things like adding a photo, text, or emoji’s, and you can also add daily affirmations, but one of the more powerful ones which I like is that you can also add shortcuts.
So if you want a quick way to access an App, or run an automation, or just a quick link to a website, you can do all of that within the Shelf app.
Hit the Island
Outside of this there are some fun things you can do with the Dynamic Island.
Hit the Island is a game of pong where you have to hit the dynamic island when bouncing a ball around on screen.
Pixel Pals
Pixel Pals lets you look after a tiny pet that lives up in your Dynamic Island. You can feed them, pet them, play with them.
So those are all of the ways I genuinely use the Dynamic Island, as well as a few extras for those of you who want to have a little fun with it too.
Let me know in the comments below which apps you tend to use the most with the Dynamic Island, it’s always interesting to hear other ways people are using it.
I hope this post was useful, if it was then please don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter, and I will see you in the next post.
