Dynamic Island blocks iOS header (clock, battery, etc.); need option to disable
Hi,
I love ATracker, but it causes a serious issue on my IPhone 14 Pro Max (iOS 16.1.1): it uses the Dynamic Island to show the current running task, and this completely blocks the standard iOS header (clock, wifi status, battery, etc.). I can dismiss the Island, of course, but it just comes back when I switch tasks, and it's annoying to have to keep dismissing it all the time.
So: please add a setting to turn off the Dynamic Island integration completely.
In addition: I wonder if, when enabled, the Island could be much more compact--for instance, by showing only the task icon but not the name. Also it currently shows seconds ticking by (despite having "Show seconds" turned off in Settings); minutes-only, or no timer at all, would take less space.
Thanks!!
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Official comment
Thanks for using ATracker!
ATracker provides data to iOS, and iOS decides how to render them. Currently, in iOS 16.1, it is impossible to disable the dynamic island. But Apple will release iOS 16.2 in December, and we heard iOS 16.2 would allow users to disable dynamic islands. Hopefully, they will also improve the rendering of the content in dynamic islands. If the issue is still not fixed in iOS 16.2, we will check with Apple on what we can do to improve it.
Comment actions -
Thanks for the explanation! I look forward to iOS 16.2 improving matters.
In the meantime, though, couldn't you (optionally) just not provide the timer data to iOS at all, by disabling your ActivityWidget completely? (I realize that would eliminate the Live Activity on the lockscreen too; that seems fine to me). And/or, you could adjust what information you provide in ActivityProperties. For instance, you could provide the task icon but not the name; provide minutes elapsed as an Int instead of a Date (to avoid displaying seconds), etc.
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We will need to investigate it.
The iOS widget function is very limited. If we provide an int, it will be that value forever. So to make it tick, we need to provide thousands of values in advance (to create the timeline and let it tick once per minute). We cannot provide it in the background, either. Also, Apple has a limit of about 50 updates per day per app.
By the way, for live activity, users can disable it in iOS->Settings->ATracker (or ATracker PRO). I heard Apple would do the same for dynamic islands in the next iOS patch.
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On iOS 16.3.1 with the Dynamic Island showing a full-width message about the current ATracker task, I can swipe either left or right across the Dynamic Island bar and it shrinks to reasonable size so I can see the clock, network connectivity, and battery status (from what I’ve read elsewhere this might be somewhat temporary, but it makes the whole mechanism totally workable for me in that I can check the time of day). Swiping once more expands the ATracker dynamic Island message back to full (ie readable) width.
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