IPhone 18 Pro’s New Dynamic Island Tracks Three Activities at Once

Apple wasted no time during its “Surprise and Shine” event on Wednesday to introduce the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, the most advanced smartphones the company has ever released — until the foldable iPhone Duo it revealed a few minutes later. One of the big new features for Apple’s powerful flat phones is an upgraded Dynamic Island to help you keep track of more things at once. The Dynamic Island debuted on the iPhone 15 Pro back in 2023 as a clever way to hide the notch for the front-facing cameras and sensors, displaying app and notification previews in a space that grows and shrinks depending on what it shows. The Dynamic Island displays the highest-priority thing at the top of your screen, like live directions and sports scores, and in recent iPhones, it was able to show two of these at once. Previously, the Dynamic Island only allowed previews of two apps.Apple/Screenshot by CNET With the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, the new Dynamic Island can expand to show up to three live activities simultaneously. No, the Island won’t stretch all the way to the edges of the screen to fit them all — it seems like the main activity will take up the lion’s share of the feature’s space, with smaller circular icons on either side. In practice, these smaller icons probably won’t provide much information, but they do serve as shortcuts to open those apps, offering faster access than manually switching. We’ll have to see how this works when we get our hands on the phone. Apple has already announced plenty of iPhone 18 Pro features during its event, with variable aperture in its main rear camera, a larger liquid-cooling vapor chamber, better battery life and faster charging. David Lumb is a managing editor for the mobile team, covering mobile and gaming spaces. Before CNET, he covered tech, gaming, and culture for TechRadar, Engadget, Popular Mechanics, NBC Asian America, Increment, Fast Company and others. As a true Californian, he lives for coffee, beaches and burritos. See full bio The Latest from David iPhone 18 Pro’s New Dynamic Island Tracks 3 Activities at Once An Hour of Gundam: Rogue Orbit Made Me Feverish for More Robot Combat 2027 Android Phones Could Boost Gaming Graphics and AI Tasks With Arm’s New Chip Tech