Apple repeatedly shows iPhone 14 Pro design without a dynamic island

Apple repeatedly shows off the iPhone 14 Pro’s rumored “pill and hole punch” display cutout design without Dynamic Island, although that’s not an option on the device.

In a new support document titled “Use Always-On Display with your iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 14 Pro Max,” released yesterday, Apple clearly shows the device’s two display cutouts with usable display area in between and no dynamic Iceland. This is at least the third time the design has come from official Apple sources.

There was evidence that Apple was explicitly using the rumored “pill and hole punch” design first sighted in the first graphics published on the Apple website after the “Far out” event. Shortly thereafter, Apple released developer resources for the “iPhone 14 Pro” that only showed the display cutouts, before re-uploading the resources that correctly showed the dynamic island.

The repeated error is strange as there is currently no way to disable the dynamic island and make content between the two display panes appear normal. The visuals are also striking, as for much of the “iPhone 14 Pro” rumor cycle the device was expected to look exactly like this. Rumors of the Dynamic Island and the two display cutouts appearing as a single “pill” thanks to software improvements only surfaced a week before the Apple event.

The bugs could indicate that Dynamic Island was intended as an optional feature or was even a fairly late decision in the development of the “iPhone 14 Pro”. It seems highly likely that due to the siled nature of Apple’s internal structure, staff responsible for web design, developer resources, and support documents were unaware of Dynamic Island until just prior to the Apple event.

As information about the Dynamic Island solidified, it was believed that previous rumors proclaiming a design with two visible display cutouts were simply derived from hardware leaks while the software was still heavily locked down. Apple’s repeated illustration of the rumored design suggests that the initial understanding of what the display cutouts would look like may have been more official than previously thought.