These iPhone Apps Put the Dynamic Island to Good Use

You’ve probably noticed that what was once a notch on the front of the iPhone is now a Dynamic Island. Apple’s version of a hole-punch comes with some useful functionality and slick animations. Here are some apps that put the feature to good use.

1 Sports Alerts: Never Miss a Run, Goal, or Point

For sports fans, keeping up with scores is critical. Unfortunately, you aren’t always going to be able to watch every game live. The Sports Alerts app makes it easy to track your team’s scores with a great looking Dynamic Island live activity.

Inside the app, you can select your favorite teams and leagues, and if a game you’re interested in starts, you can set it to display scores on your Dynamic Island that persist while you use your phone.

This app’s simplicity is part of what makes it so great. It doesn’t try to overload you with data but clearly displays scores and logos that constantly update. If you are looking for a bit more information, you can hold down on the Dynamic Island for more details, depending on which sport you’re looking at.

Sports Alerts lets you avoid the hassle of constantly checking an app to see if scores have changed, so you use your iPhone as normal while keeping up with the score. The way the app integrates itself into the Dynamic Island is unobtrusive, and the Sports Alerts app is completely free to use.

2 Flighty: Make the Airport Just a Little Less Stressful

There’s quite a bit you need to keep track of at the airport, but a good flight tracker can help relieve some of the stress. The Flighty app is an excellent flight tracker, which can track your plane’s movement, alert you of delays, give you useful updates, and much more.

One of its stand-out features is the excellent Dynamic Island integration. If you’re anything like me, you constantly check to make sure you are actually at the right gate when you’re at the airport, even if you just looked at your boarding pass a minute ago. With Flighty, you can just glance down at your phone to confirm, as it displays your gate and time to take off on your Dynamic Island.

If you hold the Dynamic Island to see more, you can see your plane’s current movement, as well as your seat number, time to board, and more. This app is an excellent tool for traveling and saves plenty of time digging through your pockets for your boarding pass or checking airport apps to confirm information.

Flighty is free to access the basic features, including Dynamic Island use. For access to advanced flight tracking, thorough flight alerts, automations, and more, you can purchase Flighty Pro for $47.99 a year, or $249 for lifetime access.

3 Pixel Pals: A Fuzzy Friend That’s Always Around

Is this app the most productive, informative use of your Dynamic Island? Not at all. Is it adorable? Definitely. Pixel Pals is very reminiscent of a Tamagotchi or similar digital pet, except it has been shrunk down and makes a home on your Dynamic Island. Once you choose your animal, it will show on your Dynamic Island wherever you go on your iPhone.

If you tap and hold on your Pixel Pal, you can choose to feed or play with it, which will bring you to the app. It’s a simple, cute, creative use of the Dynamic Island.

The Pixel Pals app is free to download, and lets you choose between a dog and a cat. For more animal choices and features, Pixel Pals Premium is $1.99 a month or $14.99 a year.

4 Uber/Lyft: Help Find Your Ride

Ridesharing apps have changed the way a lot of us get around. For many, the days of hailing taxis and calling cab companies are a thing of the past. Now, whenever we need a ride, we can use an app on our phones to call a car no matter where we are.

With smartphone apps, we can see exactly who’s picking us up, when they’ll arrive, what kind of car they drive, and even schedule rides ahead of time. Apps like Uber and Lyft both leverage the Dynamic Island to their advantage to display this information.

With Dynamic Island support, you can keep an eye on where your driver is and when they arrive, even when you leave the app. This addition is great if you’re texting someone to let them know where you are, but still want to keep an eye on how close your ride is.

Like others on this list, if you hold onto the activity in the Dynamic Island, you can view more information, including who your driver is, the kind of car they’re in, and the license plate number. Uber and Lyft are free to download, but charge you for rides taken using the app.

There’s no shortage of fitness apps for the iPhone, but if you’re looking for one that uses the Dynamic Island, Steps Activity Tracker is one of the best. It doesn’t have too many bells and whistles, but it’s great for tracking your progress and monitoring how your goals are coming along. It counts your distance, steps, time active, calories, and more, whether you’re working out or not.

Where the app really shines is in its great Dynamic Island integration, which takes the hassle out of opening up an app to check your step count. When you set a step goal on this app, your Dynamic Island will update how close you are to completing that goal, as well as how many steps you’ve taken and how long you’ve been walking.

Steps Activity Tracker is free to use, but buying Premium for $3.99 unlocks extra features.

6 Apple Music/Spotify: Quickly Access Your Music Controls

There are plenty of ways to control what your Apple Music or Spotify apps are currently playing while using your iPhone. You can use the Control Center, press a button on your headphones, ask Siri, open the app, and more. Because of this, the Dynamic Island adding support for music control isn’t exactly revolutionary.

However, whenever you play a song, you can see the album art on the left and an EQ-style visualizer on the right. Though not exactly useful, it looks great.

Spotify can be used for free with ads and limited abilities. For all-access subscriptions, both apps are $10.99 a month for single-user accounts.

7 Apple Maps: Get Where You Need to Be

On-screen, persistent directions through Apple Maps at the top of the iPhone’s screen have been around much longer than the Dynamic Island. It’s always helpful to know what your next move should be when you’re walking or driving, even if you have something else up on your phone screen. The Dynamic Island brought this feature to the next level, integrating upcoming directions beautifully and allowing you to long-press to end your route.

Other similar apps also use the Dynamic Island, including Citymapper (a guide to public transit). Though other navigational apps like Google Maps and Waze have some support for the Dynamic Island, they are still being perfected, and not all users have been able to access it.

Apple Maps is free to use. Citymapper is free to use, but offers a monthly membership for $1.49 that unlocks extra features.

8 Phone/WhatsApp: Access Key Features From Wherever You Are

It’s easy to forget that our iPhones are, at their core, phones. It’s no surprise that Apple integrated call support into the Dynamic Island, and even alternate calling apps like WhatsApp and Skype make use of the feature. Though it doesn’t exactly provide tons of functionality, it displays the length of your call, a sound visualizer, and if held, brings up controls to mute or hang up.

This is a great visual reminder that you’re on a phone call without obstructing your ability to view other content on your iPhone, as well as letting you know how long your call has gone on for at a glance.

Phone and WhatsApp are both free to use.

9 Pestle: Follow and Manage Recipes

There are plenty of ways your iPhone comes in handy when you’re trying to cook. From setting timers to reading recipes and discovering new foods, it’s my most used tool in the kitchen by far. The Pestle app aims to help you collect and execute recipes, with step-by-step instructions you can follow along to ensure you haven’t missed a thing. What makes it stand out among the rest, however, is its excellent Dynamic Island integration.

When you have a recipe in progress, Pestle will display the step you’re currently on inside your Dynamic Island, so you never lose your place. If you have any timers set, it also displays the time remaining. Because you’re often doing so much on your phone while you’re preparing a recipe, having a persistent reminder of where you are in your recipe can be a big help.

Pestle is free to download and use. All extra features can be unlocked with Pestle Pro, which costs $2.99 a month or $39.99 for a lifetime subscription.

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The Dynamic Island is a small but powerful feature that Apple now includes on all iPhone models (except the iPhone SE). As time goes on, I have no doubt that app developers will find new and creative ways to use it as a way to enhance their app’s capabilities.