Is your friend flaunting his new iPhone with Dynamic Island? Are you just impressed by Apple’s creative take on the punch-hole style selfie camera and want to try it out for yourself? No worries, since now you can also use the dynamic island on Samsung Galaxy phones. This is how you can do it.
Note: The following guide covers how to use Dynamic Island on Samsung Galaxy Phones, but the same method can be followed on any Android phone, provided the Android phone meets the minimum requirements of the app used.
Table of Contents
What Is Dynamic Island
Apple introduced Dynamic Island with the iPhone 14 Pro series in 2022. Ever since the feature was released to the public, it has been getting more and more accessibility features for all apps, including third-party apps as well. With the release of the iPhone 15 series, the dynamic island was expanded to the complete line-up of iPhones launched.
Since then, it has been hard for all the Android app developers to ignore this feature. Finally, dynamicSpot was developed by XDA Senior Member Jawomo to provide dynamic island like functionality on Samsung Galaxy and other Android phones.
While a lot of other Android apps also promise to add Dynamic Island on Samsung Galaxy phones, in our testing, we found dynamicSpot to be trouble-free and quite capable.
There are a few ads that you will encounter, but they are only limited within the app’s UI and you won’t see them anywhere else in the system or while using the island. We tested the free version of the app which had a few ads, but you can also get the pro version at $4.99 if you need an ad-free experience with more features.
Dynamic Island on Samsung
Before we begin, note that the app will require access to your contacts and notifications among other things in order to function correctly. This is a 3rd party app.
1. Download and open the dynamicSpot app to get Dynamic Island on your Samsung Galaxy, then tap Next.
2. Now select which apps can activate the dynamic island by tapping on Select apps. For better ease, we recommend that you select this for all the apps that you use, but you can also choose only selective apps.
3. Give notification access to the app by tapping on the notification access banner. Find the flip switch for dynamicSpot in the next system menu and enable it. You can tap Allow if any other prompt for notification comes up.
Note: Again, you’re giving complete notification access to the app, including personal information such as contact names and text messages you receive, by enabling notification access for dynamicSpot.
4. Also, provide permission to draw on the screen by tapping on it so the app can show you a dynamic island on any screen. You’ll be redirected to the Accessibility menu.
5. Tap on installed apps and look for dynamicSpot.
6. Enable Draw on screen for dynamicSpot.
Now we’re done with the app setup, and all the options should have a tick mark in front of them. Finally, tap on DONE! to start the app.
Dynamic Island in Action
Once you’re done with the initial setup, you can see the dynamic island in action on your Samsung Galaxy Phone.
Try playing some music in your music app, for instance, YouTube Music. When the music starts playing, you get a black pill in the top center of the phone, which shows the album art of the music playing along with the app icon beside it.
Did you know you can also comment on songs and videos on YouTube Music? This is how you can do it.
If you tap on this black pill, you get an expanded view of the pill. It features a simplified media player with the play/pause, next, and previous control buttons of the media. You can pause a song by tapping on the pause icon, and likewise for other media icons.
The same is the case with video apps like YouTube. You’ll get media access in the same pill if you’re watching any video on YouTube. It is useful in scenarios if you use PiP (picture-in-picture) mode a lot (who doesn’t eh?).
Imagine you get an email while listening to music. What happens then? The dynamic island will show you a separate circular spot with the email app’s icon beside the music pill. This circular spot is also interactive, and if you tap on it, you’ll get an expanded view of the email.
Tip: You can archive or reply to the received email directly from this expanded notification.
The app dynamicSpot works for all the apps that send you notifications, including messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, etc., provided that you’ve selected these apps in dynamicSpot’s app settings.
If you want to know more about notifications, here are the best notification settings you must know for your Samsung Galaxy phones.
Troubleshooting Dynamic Island
If you feel the dynamic island is too big for your liking or too low from the selfie camera, you can change the dynamic island’s position from the app settings.
1. Open the dynamicSpot app and tap Position. Now you can adjust the position of the dynamic island from the center to the left or right corner. A mock-up of the time dynamic island appears on the usual position, showing you the positional change made.
2. Also, the size of the dynamic island pill can be adjusted horizontally and vertically. You can always reset the size and position by tapping on Reset if you made too many changes and want to start fresh again.
3. You can also customize the look and feel of the dynamic island by going to Appearance and changing icons, animations, and other stuff. But most of these are locked in the free version and only available to Pro users of the same app for a one-time payment of $4.99.
4. You can block system popup notifications using the Block system popups option in the app, so you won’t get double notifications.
Spot the Dynamic Island
You don’t have to worry about some pill-shaped cutouts on those half-eaten fruit phones because now you have your very own dynamic island on Samsung Galaxy phones, which works the same way as it works on the fruit phones. And if you feel like there are fewer features for you in the free version of the app, you can always get the pro version for $4.99.
On this note, if you’re still wondering what else is new in the fruit phones, here is everything you need to know about USB-C in the iPhone 15 series.
