This Clever App Brings iPhone’s Dynamic Island to MacBooks

Aug. 13, 2024

If you have always loved theiPhone’s Dynamic Island featureand want to tweak the default macOS interface, take a step forward. A tiny app for macOS called “NotchNook” brings the iPhone’s Dynamic Island to macOS, giving you a fully functional notch on your MacBooks. It basically transforms the notch on your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro into the Dynamic Island and it’s well-optimized for the task. The app has some super cool animations and feels like a natural extension of macOS.

The NotchNook App

Just like Dynamic Island, NotchNook expands from the notch, showing a“Nook”tab that offers quick access to your multimedia control, files, shortcuts, and other customizable widgets. For instance, if you’re listening to music on Apple Music, the NotchNook app will show media playback controls.

This is pretty similar to the Now Playing live activity on the iPhone’s lock screen. When you hover your Mac pointer on live activities, you can also see additional information. The app also allows you to customize Live activities and add other customizable widgets.

Along with the media controls, the app also lets youadd customized one-click shortcutsto speed up your everyday tasks like adding a shortcut like creating a WordPress document, merging photos, or more. This makes it easier for me to run my most-used shortcut or open a Google Doc with a single click. Trust me, it can help you save a lot of time. The app also offers a handyMirroroption so you can look your best for important video calls and meetings.

Also, there’s a “Tray” tabthat lets you drag and drop files and also use the AirDrop option. The Tray tab offers two sections-Files Tray and AirDop. You can easily add files to the files tray and then drop them into another app. I feel it’s a great way to avoid cluttering your desktop with files and boost multitasking.

The NotchNook app also makes it easy to use AirDrop on your Mac. Rather than messing around with menus in Finder to locate the AirDrop option, you can use the NotchNook’s AirDrop option to ease things. As soon as you drop the file in NotchNook’s AirDrop area, it will initiate the transfer. This will invoke the standard macOS AirDrop sheet so you can choose from the nearby Apple devices to share your files with.

The initial version had a few issues, but the team has ironed them out in the 1.2 update. Now, the app will show any media playing on your Mac in Dynamic Island. This includes YouTube videos, listening to music on SoundCloud, VLC Player, and even podcasts on Spotify. Also, the Dynamic Island will automatically adjust any widgets you add, so you can easily scroll across to music controls, Calendar, and more.

The NotchNook app is compatible with Macs runningmacOS 14.0 or later versions. It’s worth knowing that the NotchNook app works on MacBooks with and without notches. If your Mac doesn’t have a notch, the NookNotch can simulate one for you. You can customize it so it either looks like a full notch or simply sits a small black sliver at the top center of your screen. The app will offer a nice handler with the exact same functions.