OnePlus stole Apple’s Dynamic Island, but made it much better

I never really liked Apple’s Dynamic Island. Sure, replacing the notch is sometimes useful for checking out songs on Spotify, following directions in Apple Maps, and tracking my fantasy football score, but most of the time it just sits there – heavy on the island, light on dynamics. In other words, it’s like a notch with a few extra features here and there. And yet, I know I can’t get rid of it since it houses the hardware needed for Face ID.

However, I think it’s time for Apple to look outside its walled garden, because Android brands are copying Dynamic Island, but they’re doing it much better. OnePlus’ live alerts are what I wish Dynamic Island was, and I’m happy to admit that.

I first discovered OnePlus Live Alerts in the best way: during the natural setup of my OnePlus 13. Of course, I would have known that they were part of the announced features of Oxygen OS 15 in October, but at the time, I was much more focused on the promised Apple Intelligence rollout and comparing the iPhone 16 Pro to anything else I could find. As such, I was so focused on Dynamic Island that I didn’t realize a simpler, smoother option was right around the corner.

Then I got my hands on a OnePlus 13 review unit in Midnight Ocean with OnePlus Buds Pro 3, and I did what anyone would do: I set up Spotify to get to work with a new pair of headphones in my ears. After a song or two, I noticed a small – but somehow familiar – oval flanking the selfie camera at the top of my 6.8-inch screen. Sure enough, the OnePlus 13 let me know which song my days list had been shuffled to. But unlike the iPhone 16 Pro that I had just spent over a month using, as soon as I paused the music, the island disappeared. It was great.

Of course, my first glimpse of a live alert only made me want to know more. I restarted the music I had just paused, then tapped the alert to see if OnePlus let me interact with it differently than Apple’s simple commands. This is what happened. At least with Spotify, if you tap the live alert, it opens to a card that takes up about a third of your screen, providing control over your playback, your media output device, and your four playlists or newest artists – pretty much what you access on the cover screen of a Motorola Razr Plus. The level of interaction makes it easy to control your music without diving too deep into the Spotify rabbit hole.

Immediately, I realized that this was what I wanted Apple’s Dynamic Island to look like. I wanted a single press on the card to give me a small interaction with whatever I’m doing and a longer press to open the app – the opposite of how Apple handles things. It’s the type of interaction that lets me use my phone less, which is what a streamlined interface like Dynamic Island was supposed to do all along.

More importantly, I think OnePlus’ approach to stacking live alerts is better than Apple can match. Right now, when you expand one of the cards in your Dynamic Island pile, that’s it: you can only see that one. You can monitor your kitchen timer more closely or pause your Spotify playlist, but not both. However, with live alerts, you can develop all of your cards at once, allowing you to stay sharp in the kitchen as you follow the final week of the NFL regular season. It’s like stacking multiple widgets on top of each other, but I like that you can clear them all at the end.

This is perhaps what I like most about live alerts: they look like widgets and are easy to use, but they disappear when you’re done with them. Unlike Dynamic Island, which always takes up a constant amount of space around the entire Face ID module, there’s no indication that there’s even a Live Alert interface unless you use it. If your phone is idle, you’ll only see a hole for the selfie camera – no extra dark area, no indicator that you were listening to music before, just an uninterrupted status bar at the top of your phone. It’s great. And yet, I continue to think that Live Alerts could go even further.

One problem with pill-style notifications, whether on Android or iOS, is that support remains limited. Right now, Dynamic Island sends you alerts from a few third-party apps like Uber and Google Maps, but it’s far from universal. Unfortunately, OnePlus’ live alerts are even more limited. Currently, music playback controls work with Spotify but don’t work with YouTube Music, significantly limiting your choice of streaming services. OnePlus also doesn’t offer live alerts for ride-hailing or navigation apps, making it difficult to complete too many tasks at once.

Additionally, OnePlus is far from the only Android brand wanting to conquer Apple’s Dynamic Island. Before long, Samsung will have its own version available as part of One UI 7, interestingly called Now Bar. I’m not sure I like this name, but it seems like an interesting, if slightly backwards, alternative. Rather than placing your controls at the top of a tall, thin screen, Samsung’s Now Bar will sit right between the lock screen shortcuts when your phone is locked before moving to the top status bar when you unlock your phone.

In some ways, I think I’ll like the Now Bar better than Live Alerts when I get my hands on it, but not all the time. I’ll appreciate it being easier to reach the bottom of my screen, but if I unlock my phone, the Now Bar doesn’t get any better than Dynamic Island. This will limit me to just one app or timer at a time, and I’ll immediately come back for more.

Ultimately, I think for any Android brand to attempt to replace Dynamic Island, the solution will have to come from Google itself. Right now, the different approaches perfectly live up to the old slogan “being together, not the same,” but they do so at the cost of a cohesive experience. They support different third-party apps, layouts, and touch controls, making them all lag behind Apple’s single, unified experience.

But if Google is looking for inspiration when it prepares to challenge Apple, I hope it looks to OnePlus first.