From notch to Dynamic Island: a short history of Apple's cutouts

Apple's camera cutouts have a short history with a clear order: the notch came to the iPhone X in 2017, to the MacBook Pro in 2021 and to the MacBook Air in 2022. The Dynamic Island came to the iPhone 14 Pro in 2022, to every iPhone 15 model in 2023, and, in October 2026, to one Mac: the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display.

That is the whole story in two sentences. Below, the dates go on a timeline, with what each step changed and, just as useful, what it left alone. Where Apple has not said something about the newest step, that is marked too.

The timeline

2017: the notch arrives on the iPhone

The iPhone X put the camera and sensors in a dark cutout at the top of an otherwise edge-to-edge screen. For software, the notch was an obstacle. The clock and status icons were pushed to either side of it, and apps had to avoid it. It held hardware and did nothing else. Everyone who owned one learned to ignore it.

2021: the notch moves to the Mac

Four years later the notch reached the Mac, on the redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro and M1 Max. The usual explanation is the same as on the phone: it let the screen reach closer to the edges while keeping a camera at the top. On the Mac, macOS treated it as a gap in the menu bar, with app menus on the left and status icons on the right. That brought a problem the iPhone never had: icons that do not fit beside the notch are hidden, as menu bar icons hidden behind the notch explains.

2022: the Air joins, and the iPhone's cutout becomes an island

Two things happened in the same year. The MacBook Air followed the Pro with the M2 model, so the notch moved from the premium laptops to the everyday ones. Which Macs have a notch has the full list of models, including the ones that never got it.

In September 2022, the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max introduced the Dynamic Island. It is a pill-shaped area around the front camera and Face ID sensors that grows and changes shape for alerts, Live Activities and controls. The cutout was no longer something to work around. It was a place the software could use. Live Activities arrived in an iPhone update later that year and gave the island most of its content.

2023: the island goes mainstream

The next year, every iPhone 15 model got the Dynamic Island. For a few years after that, the split held: the iPhone had an island, and the Mac had a notch that just sat there. The Mac notch and the iPhone's Dynamic Island compares the two.

The gap between them closed a little with macOS Tahoe: once iPhone Mirroring is set up, the iPhone's Live Activities can appear in the Mac's menu bar. That still left the notch itself inert. The live status lived in the bar beside it, not in the cutout.

2026: an island on the Mac

On 28 October 2026 came the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display, a 14 or 16-inch laptop with M5 Pro or M5 Max. It replaces the notch with a Dynamic Island, and Apple gave the island Spotlight, Live Activities and Siri AI to hold. Pre-orders opened that day, and deliveries start on Friday, 6 November 2026.

Early hands-on reports, not Apple's words, describe a smaller opening for the camera and a menu bar with no gap in it. Apple has not given the island's size, or said whether it can be hidden or what happens to it when an app goes full screen.

What it did not change

• Most Macs keep the notch. The M6 MacBook Pro, announced the day before, stays with mini-LED and a notch. So do the M5 Pro and M5 Max models that came out in March, and the MacBook Air from M2 on.
• Some Macs have neither. The MacBook Neo, from March 2026, has even bezels and its camera in the top bezel. A 13-inch MacBook Pro, an M1 MacBook Air, an iMac, a Mac mini, a Mac Studio and a Mac Pro have no notch either.
• Touch ID stays. The new MacBook Pro has Touch ID, not Face ID, like every Mac before it.

Is the MacBook notch gone takes the owner's side of this.

What the pattern suggests

Looking at the dates, there is a rough rhythm. A feature arrives on the iPhone and takes some years to reach the Mac, and when it does, it arrives on the top-end model first. The notch went to the Pro in 2021, then the Air in 2022. The island has reached the Pro in 2026. Whether it follows the notch down to the Air, Apple has not said, and nothing in this timeline promises that it will. Treat that as a pattern, not a prediction.

Where Notchpals sits in the history

None of these cutouts was designed for reminders, but the top middle of the screen is a spot your eyes pass all day, which makes it a good place for one. Notchpals uses the notch on the Macs this timeline gave one to, and draws a black stand-in island on the ones that never got a notch, such as an M1 MacBook Air or an iMac. A history lesson suits Matsu, the three-hundred-year-old bonsai from the Posture area, who has watched a few seasons of hardware come and go.

MatsuA new day. Three hundred years, and the morning still surprises me.

The cutouts above kept getting bigger jobs. The Notchpals idea is plainer: the same spot, used to remind you to sit up or drink some water.