The magic of Apple’s Dynamic Island

Like many technologists, I LOVE Apple Events. When I watch, I’m often reminded of Arthur C. Clarke’s words:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

But it’s not only the technology, it’s the performance that goes with it. The choice words, the pacing, the way they play to your emotions by creating mystery, tension, and build up to a moment of a curated unveiling that leaves you thinking — how does it, how did they, when can I? Take a minute to watch this week’s unveil video of Dynamic Island.

The performance magic

The first 15 seconds of the video is all about mystery and tension building. The music is quiet and simple, slowly building. The lines first trace the phone, then tickles the back camera creating emphasis. The phone flips and a mysterious trace around the shadow of the front begins the moment of focus. At the drop and perfectly timed with the words “what’s the move” the full unveil happens with a subtle phone ring and you begin to see the product in action. Pay attention to how the music beats perfectly matches to the movement on the screen and the words perfectly match the context that is being shown. My favorite part is at about 25 seconds in when the music hits “she says where you goin’ goin’ goin’” and with every “goin’” the mile marker moves up .1. They show how it works in a bunch of different contexts quickly, then right when the beat really drops, we see the front and back cam together, a nod back to our first phone ring example, the screen goes black, we trace on the same emphasis from the beginning and it’s over. They end before the peak starts to drop.

The product magic

I think part of what is so amazing about that hype video is that is also subtly shows us what is so amazing about the product design. Here are the three big things of note:

1. Leaning into their constraints to make something magical. That blacked out notch on the top of your iPhone that is there for your front camera is taking up precious real estate. They easily could have left it and said, “well it is what it is and we can’t do much about it until the tech gets better.” But instead, they took it as an opportunity to explore, and they came up with something that is pretty useful with the bonus effect that it makes the tech further disappear into the interface. I love how the hype video doesn’t shy away from showing you their constraint. There’s a ton of emphasis on the camera itself to show you how clever they are.
2. Being contextually aware of what is important to the user through space and time. This one will need a little testing with the actual product, but the hype video sure shows a lot of interesting ways that this can be used to have a focus area on an app you are currently using, with a subtle and useful multi-task area in the dynamic island. Maybe you’re reading the news and listening to music and you want to change the song. You don’t have to completely change context to do that any more. It’s right there and you can keep on reading.
3. Using movement to create satisfying, smooth transitions that create meaning. Their choice of song could not have indicated more that “movement” is the theme of the design. The Dynamic island itself pops and in and out of different sizing. Notice how it never flashes from one state to another, but it grows, shrinks and moves, slowing down to allow your brain to process what is happening in a way that is more pleasing. From small to large when going from a background activity to a focused moment. It goes from small to smaller back to small again when switching background activities. It forms separates like water into two separate bubbles when two background activities are happening. Notice the movements inside of the bar as well. While a lot of them are familiar, they take great care in the movement of each thing. One of my absolute favorites is how, again on the mileage it moves just like a rotary odometer.