New iPhone 14 feature looks incredible on upgraded iPad Pro concept

When Apple announced its new Dynamic Island feature during the iPhone 14 event, I laughed because it's a daft name. But as Apple demoed it, I thought two more sensible things. One, I really want an iPhone 14 Pro. And two, I really want Dynamic Island on my iPad Air.

If you can't imagine how the Dynamic Island would work on an iPad, Parker Ortolani can show you: on his Twitter feed he's posted multiple concept images showing the feature in different scenarios, such as on the Home Screen, in apps and in Split View (hat tip to MacRumors for the spot).

With the notch expected to come to the 2022 iPad Pro later this year, it's fun to imagine what it might do with a Dynamic Island instead – although its notch is likely to be on the top edge in portrait mode, rather than the landscape shown in these concept renders.

Why Dynamic Island would be great on iPads

What I find really interesting about these renders is that the Dynamic Island effectively becomes a menu bar for the iPad without just copying the one from macOS – so for example in Safari it might bring up controls such as translate, Reader mode and so on. It would be a more desktop-like experience without completely sacrificing the iPad's interface, a working compromise between the iPhone's very stripped-back interface and the much more complex desktop one.

If the rumours are correct and this year's iPad Pro really is getting a notch, then the pill-shaped cutout of the iPhone Pro 14 would clearly be a less invasive place for the cameras. But it would also be annoying in landscape mode if it were pegged to actual hardware rather than just on-screen as an interface element.

There's one place that wouldn't be an issue, though, and it's on a device that's permanently in landscape mode: the MacBook Pro. That's already got a notch, and as with the iPhone I think there are a fair few users who'd rather it didn't. Could we see Dynamic Island in next year's macOS? If it's as popular as the initial reaction to it on iPhone suggests, I wouldn't bet against it.