Realme’s upcoming looks set to be the first Android phone with a Dynamic Island. A leaked video shows the device’s design, and a pill-shaped cutout dubbed the Realme Mini Capsule.
Apple Dynamic Island design
On September 8th, 2022, Apple unveiled the iPhone 14 series. The highlight of the event was a feature called Dynamic Island that is exclusive to the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone Pro Max.
This was not just the Cupertino company’s way of ditching the notch, but also a rather innovate method to provide useful bits of content on the screen. Now it’s worth noting that there is a reason why Apple held on to the notch, while the rest of smartphone manufacturers moved away from it, mostly in favour of a hole-punch design.
The company’s devices since the iPhone X have used the notch-design, to house some special sensors that were required for FaceID, including the TrueDepth camera that maps your face for accuracy. Let’s face it, a notch takes up too much space on the screen, it’s sort of like an extended bezel, which can be distracting, and more importantly, is completely useless.
Apple’s senior VP of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, called Dynamic Island the first major operation change since the iPhone X. Alan Dye, Apple’s VP of Human Interface Design, said that the Dynamic Island combines software and hardware to offer new functionalities. The company moved the proximity sensor from the notch, and put it behind the display, this also helped it reduce the size of the space taken up by the TrueDepth camera.
So, what does the Dynamic Island do? The Dynamic Island is more than just a software tweak, it uses changes in size and shape, to alert you about notifications, phone calls, timers, map navigation, etc. It also displays live activities on the Lock Screen, such as tracking deliveries.
Now, when the iPhone 14 Pro was announced, many users predicted that it was only a matter of time before Android OEMs begin copying the design of the Dynamic Island. It didn’t take long for some software developers to create a similar pill-shaped widget for Android phones.
Realme Mini Capsule tries to mimic iPhone’s Dynamic Island
But, we didn’t see any company try to copy the Dynamic Island, until now. Realme has dared to leap first. The leaked video shared by OnLeaks and SmartPrix shows off how the Realme Mini Capsule works.
The widget displays alerts such as low battery with the estimated remaining time, and charging status “Supervooc 33W” with the battery percentage, fully charged and estimated battery duration, etc. But if you notice it closely, you can see that the Realme Mini Capsule seems to shrink to the size of the hole-punch camera, and expands automatically in order to display the other information. It is unclear if it would be capable of additional features.
What’s more surprising is that this Realme Mini Capsule will be part of an upcoming C-series phone. This has been confirmed by the brand’s CEO, Madhav Sheth.
