Everyone’s talking about the iPhone 14 Pro and its brilliant (and still awfully-named) Dynamic Island, which integrates the new notch-replacing display cutout into the UI. The phone started shipping to first-wave countries like the US, UK, Australia and Singapore on Friday, and while we’ll still have to wait another week for it to come to Malaysia, it looks like we have a lot to look forward to.
Not only is there a lot of functionality built in, but developers are already taking advantage of the cutout’s pill shape, which houses the selfie camera and the Face ID sensors. Take, for instance, the popular Reddit reader Apollo, which has just rolled out the ability to add a pixelated pet on the “island” while you are browsing on the app (no, you don’t have to feed it like a Tamagotchi).
You can choose from six different “Pixel Pals” – a cat called Hugo, a dog (Rupert), a hedgehog (Chortley), a fox (Finnegan) and even an axolotl (Mochi), although the last three are for Apollo Ultra subscribers only. You can also add these digital creatures as a widget to your lock screen, so that you can have them around even if you don’t have an iPhone 14 or 14 Pro Max, or if you just don’t feel like opening Apollo.
Another developer, Kriss Smolka of FunnMedia, has designed a Pong-style game that uses the cutout as a stationary “paddle”. Hit the Island is a rather simple title, but it will ramp up the difficulty by speeding up and splitting the ball into two, as well as shrinking the player’s paddle. You can download it from the Apple App Store.
The Dynamic Island was arguably the most noteworthy feature showed during Apple’s September event, expanding and shrinking the pill cutout to show call, music, navigation and timer information, as well as to indicate when Face ID and Apple Pay are being used. This feature is only found on the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max; the regular 14 and 14 Plus retain the iPhone 13’s notch.
The iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max are already available to pre-order in Malaysia and will begin shipping this Friday, September 23. It won’t be cheap however, with pricing starting at RM5,299 for the 6.1-inch version and RM5,799 for the 6.7-inch Pro Max.
