Samsung to copy iPhone's Dynamic Island in One UI 7

One of the most compelling, but criminally underused features Apple has introduced on the iPhone in recent years is the Dynamic Island and its Live Activities and, soon, Samsung is apparently going to introduce its own version of the feature.

Apple launched the Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 Pro series, with the feature effectively acting as some classic Apple branding for the new set of cutouts for the cameras and Face ID hardware. But it wasn’t a pointless bit of naming, as the Island cleverly opened up that area of the display to additional information from apps such as media controls, timers, and “Live Activities” for things such as navigation or deliveries. It’s a very underused feature, but a really good one.

Android, though, has no direction equivalent to the Dynamic Island or Live Activities. Some features from Apple’s side are already possible through Android’s more advanced status bar and often more capable notifications, but a big part of the appeal with Apple’s implementation is the polished design.

Samsung, apparently, will be taking a stab at its own version of the Dynamic Island and Live Activities with One UI 7, its take on Android 15, in the near future. That’s according to Chun Bhai on Twitter/X, who has been putting out a bunch of early info on One UI 7 as of late. There’s no word on how Samsung would implement the feature, though.

Update 7/25: In response to this rumor, Ice Universe says that Samsung won’t be fully copying the Dynamic Island after all. Rather, the company will be using the chip in the Android status bar that’s currently triggered by ongoing phone calls for some new features such as the stopwatch and recording. It’s still pretty clear why this is happening, though, and this is also how OnePlus mimics Apple’s design.

One UI 7 has no dynamic island
It just has an ellipse icon on the status bar for prompting. In One UI 6, there was only a call display. In One UI 7, other functions have been added, such as stopwatch and recording. I think the expansion of this smart function is not imitating… pic.twitter.com/26tKlax2a2

— ICE UNIVERSE (@UniverseIce) July 25, 2024

Other Android OEMs have similarly copied Apple’s design in this aspect. Realme was the first back in 2023, with OnePlus introducing its own version later the same year. In both cases, functionality was limited to certain apps. Honor also does something similar with the bigger cutout on its Magic 6 Pro, but it’s also limited to things such as media and timers.

This, along with other features One UI 7 is copying from iOS, comes as Samsung is increasingly appearing as if it is losing its brand identity as the company continues to take inspiration from Apple. Most blatantly, the Galaxy Buds 3 look suspiciously similar to AirPods, while the Galaxy Watch Ultra is a copy of the Apple Watch Ultra in more ways than one.

Samsung’s first Android 15 beta is expected to arrive very soon.