New updates are being added to the bottom of this story…

Original story (from September 26, 2022) follows:

Despite some notable progress, one of the major reasons Apple hasn’t switched to a full-screen display on the iPhone could likely be the current quality of the under-display front-facing camera.

While the selfie shooter might easily come into mind, other technologies such as under-display speaker or earpiece are clearly not prime or anywhere near the quality Apple demands for the iPhone.

Apple also needs to figure out how to make Face ID work effectively from under the screen. Or maybe bring back Touch ID, but this time under the screen, just like seen on nearly every Android smartphone today.

Granted, the iPhone 14 series was never going to launch with a full-screen display panel. The notch still lives on, but it is the Dynamic Island on the Pro models that has got many rhapsodizing about Apple’s approach.

iPhone-14-Pro-dynamic-island-full-screen-display-1
(Source)

By a long mile, this is my favorite feature of the new iPhones 14 pro and 14 pro Max. The ‘Dynamic Island’. Apple really made good use of that long pill hole cutout. This is beautiful
Source

No denying that Apple has made the most out of the pill-shaped camera and Face ID cutout in the display panels of the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max.

But amid all this praise, we are already seeing complaints about the Dynamic Island getting in the way of normal usage. This underpins The Verge’s review of the Dynamic Island as a new idea that is “inherently incomplete”.

Like any newborn, Dynamic Island is still an unfinished product. It may work fine in some instances, but it’s still less functionally pleasing in other cases.

While it might be generating Apple all the hype it needs to sell millions of iPhone 14 Pro/Max units, the Dynamic Island still needs plenty of refinement to push it closer to perfection.

And indeed, the Apple designer behind it, Chan Karunamuni, admits that the iPhone 14 is only the beginning, with more expected to come.

This is just the start, but I’m excited to see it begin its life!

iPhone-dynamic-island-delay-full-screen-display
(Source)

Of course, more refinements can be expected in future iOS updates. However, the effort put towards perfecting the Dynamic Island this far may be detrimental towards achieving another long-term desire among iPhone owners.

Several Android vendors have already adopted full-screen designs for their smartphones. Samsung’s latest Galaxy Z Fold 4 is a prime example.

The Fold 4 is a masterpiece with its folding design and immersive screen, but the latter comes at the expense of a quality selfie camera. With an under-display shooter, it has one of the worst selfie cameras on any $1000+ phone.

Sure, the foldable design means you can use the rear camera and cover screen to capture quality selfies, but this isn’t a luxury non-foldable devices like the iPhone have.

Galaxy-Z-Fold-full-screen-display
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And as noted earlier, Apple isn’t a company that compromises on quality just for the sake of advancing new technology much like Samsung and other Chinese vendors.

It has to be perfect, which explains delays in the arrival of some features like widgets and Always-On display on iPhones when Android has had them for ages.

The fact that plenty of work and effort seem to have been put into “re-inventing” the iPhone notch suggests Apple may not be ready to go the full-screen display path.

Instead, the focus may be to build on the good start the Dynamic Island has had so far. There’s a plethora of possibilities, as can be seen below.

iPhone-14-dynamic-island-improvements
(Source)

There are reports that the 2024 iPhone will ship with a full-screen panel and not a camera cutout like the iPhone 14 Pro, but the positive reception of the Dynamic Island may convince Apple to hold on just a little bit longer.

The only way the iPhone is going truly notch-less or pill-less is if Apple can put everything under the display while retaining the usual quality of features like the selfie camera, Face ID and even the speaker.

As it stands, the current quality of under-display technology is still pretty bad and nowhere near the standards Apple would demand. Let’s not even mention the mixed bag that is under-display fingerprint scanners.

Even more interesting is that Android vendors are set to go the Dynamic Island way by making more use of the camera cutout. Realme and Xiaomi are already making moves, and so will others.

With this, Apple may keep the Dynamic Island around for a while longer, further delaying the arrival of a true full-screen display panel on the iPhone. But only time will be able to tell.

We’d like to hear your thoughts on this via the comments section. As for the poll below, the results will be announced after a week.

Update (Oct. 3, 2022)

More than 72% of our readers agree that the Dynamic Island will definitely delay the full-screen design on iPhones. While 9.1% believe otherwise, the remaining 18.2% have no idea what Dynamic Island is.

Featured image: Apple

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.

Hillary Keverenge
2007 Posts

Tech has been my playground for over a decade. While the Android journey began early, it truly took flight with the revolutionary Lollipop update. Since then, it's been a parade of Android devices (with a sprinkle of iOS), culminating in a mostly happy marriage with Google's smart home ecosystem. Expect insightful articles and explorations of the ever-evolving world of Android and Google products coupled with occasional rants on the Nest smart home ecosystem.

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