Dynamic Island on an M1 MacBook Air: what's possible

The M1 MacBook Air has no Dynamic Island, and it doesn't have a notch either. Its screen has a plain strip of bezel across the top with the camera in it, and the menu bar runs unbroken from one side to the other. Apple put its island on one Mac, the new PROLED MacBook Pro announced on 28 October 2026, and built it into that laptop's display. An M1 Air can't get it.

But "no notch" is not the same as "nothing at the top of the screen". macOS lets an app draw its own black shape at the top middle of the display, and that is as close to an island as an M1 Air can get. This post explains what that means, what it can and can't do, and why an M1 owner might be better off than owners of newer Airs.

Short answers

A few questions come up every time someone searches this.

Does the M1 MacBook Air have a notch? No. The MacBook Air first got a notch with the M2 model in 2022. The M1 Air came out in 2020 and has none.

Can an update add the Dynamic Island? No. It is part of the new MacBook Pro's display, and Apple hasn't said anything about bringing it to other Macs.

Is there anything like it for an M1 Air? Yes, in two ways: Live Activities from your iPhone, shown in the menu bar on macOS Tahoe, and apps that draw an island of their own. Both are covered below.

Is the M1 Air still supported? Check this on your own Mac. Open the Apple menu, choose About This Mac, and look at which macOS you are on. Apple's support pages list which Macs each version of macOS runs on, and that is the place to confirm whether Tahoe is available to you.

A menu bar with nothing in the way

Owners of notched Macs have one chronic complaint: the menu bar has a gap in the middle, and when you run too many status icons, macOS hides the ones that would collide with the notch. The post on hidden menu bar icons is about exactly that.

On an M1 Air the whole width is yours. App menus sit on the left and status icons on the right, and the middle is empty space. That empty middle matters for the rest of this post: it is the spot an app can borrow without getting in anyone's way.

In full screen, the menu bar slides away and comes back when you move the pointer to the top edge, as on any Mac. The camera, in its strip of bezel, doesn't change that.

How to be sure yours is an M1 Air

Open the Apple menu and choose About This Mac: the chip line reads Apple M1, and the model name says MacBook Air. Look at the top of the lid with the screen on, too. If the bezel above the screen is an even black strip with no cutout, you have a no-notch Air.

If it says Intel, you have an older Air, which also has no notch and no island, and the same options below apply, with one catch: Intel Macs stop getting new macOS versions sooner than Apple silicon ones, so check what yours is on before you count on any Tahoe feature.

What you can do instead of the Dynamic Island

Use Live Activities from your iPhone

If your M1 Air is on macOS Tahoe, Live Activities from your iPhone can show up in its menu bar through iPhone Mirroring. A Live Activity is a live view of something under way: a timer, a ride, a score. The M1 is Apple silicon, so the Mac meets Apple's chip requirement, and the iPhone needs iOS 18 or later. The result is an item in the menu bar rather than a shape that grows, so it looks different from the island on an iPhone. The macOS Tahoe post has the rest of the requirements and the setup.

Install an app that draws an island

Because there is no notch to work around, an app can paint a notch-shaped island in the middle of the top edge and show things inside it. The kinds of apps that do this are the same ones that live in a real notch: a media island, a file shelf, a calendar or timer view, a reminders companion. They only see what macOS lets any app see, which is why none of them can answer your phone or run Spotlight. A few notch apps refuse to run without a real cutout, so check the app's own page first.

One practical point: a drawn island goes on the main display. If you plug in a second monitor and make it your main one, the island moves there. In recent versions of macOS you choose the main display in System Settings > Displays, from the "Use as" menu of the display you select, and the wording differs a little between versions.

Do nothing

The M1 Air is a long-lived machine. If what you really want is a calmer desk, a tidier menu bar and a Mac that does its job, none of this is missing.

Should you buy a new Mac for the island?

Not for the island alone. Coming from an M1 Air, the real differences in the new MacBook Pro are its chips, its OLED display and the touchscreen, and they are a much bigger step than the cutout at the top. Should you upgrade to the OLED MacBook Pro goes through the decision by the Mac you have now, M1 included.

Notchpals on an M1 Air

An M1 Air is one of the Macs where Notchpals brings its own island. A black, notch-shaped island sits in that empty middle at the top of the screen, and the characters come out of it now and then to look after you. It needs macOS 14 or later, which an M1 Air can run.

Bizzy, the bumblebee in the Movement area, turns up after 55 minutes in a row at the Mac:

BizzyUp up up! About an hour in that chair! Even flowers sway more than that!

Press Done and Bizzy says thanks. Press Later and it comes back once, 20 minutes on, if it still applies. Nobody checks whether you actually stood up. It trusts you.