Dynamic Island is one of the most talked about features of the iPhone 14 Pro, which launched in September 2022. This nifty feature, which replaced the notch at the top of the iPhone, became an instant fan obsession due to its innovative use of space and interactivity.
Now you too can install and enjoy Dynamic Island on your Windows PC. We’ve explained how to do it step-by-step, so read on to explore.
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What is the dynamic island?
Dynamic Island is the name of the black, pill-shaped cutout at the top of the iPhone 14 Pro’s screen, which houses the front camera and sensors needed to run Face ID.
Once you have Dynamic Island installed on your PC, it looks like the same black extended pill. But the functionality it offers you to access and interact with several Windows operating system features makes the installation worthwhile. And yes, it looks cool too.
This new way of interacting with your PC lets you do so much – check temperature, weather, memory details, battery percentage and more. It also serves as a control for the music player. In addition, you can use Dynamic Island to quickly shut down or restart your computer.
Yes, it’s practical and fun. So let’s see how to get Dynamic Island on your PC and enjoy it.
How to install Dynamic Island on Windows 10 and 11
Installing Dynamic Island on your PC involves two main downloads and installation in a few mini-steps.
First you need to download XWidget, a lightweight engine for customizing desktop widgets with smooth animations. XWidget has built-in powerful visual widget editor and online widget gallery that includes analog/digital clocks, calendar, weather, launcher, photo album, music player and more.
- Open your browser and visit the XWidget website.
- Download XWidget from the first screen of the site. Or scroll down and you’ll find it at the top right. click Download to get it on your PC.
- You need to extract the XWidget-Set files from the downloaded folder. However, while extracting the files, you may receive an error message from Windows Security that Microsoft Defender Antivirus has identified a threat. That’s because Windows security identifies xwidget_setup as a folder with malware. You will not have this problem or receive error messages with other third-party antivirus apps, even the paid ones. So before you extract the XWdget setup files, you just need to disable real-time antivirus first. You can easily do this by following the few steps in our article on how to temporarily disable Microsoft Defender.
- Now extract the downloaded zip file into the xwidget_setup folder to start the installation setup. Also click To run in the security warning asking if you want to run this software as the publisher is not identified.
- Follow the on-screen instructions and click next button to install the software on your system.
- Then click Finished to start XWidget. A shortcut of XWidget will appear on your desktop.
- XWidget will be launched on your Windows PC and three different widgets will appear on your desktop. You can right-click any widget and close it.
- Almost immediately after the three widgets appear on your desktop, the XWidgets gallery Page will also open on your laptop screen. You will find images of many widgets on the site, but the one you need to look for is this Dynamic desktop island by a developer called Jimking. Inspired by Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 Pro, he developed the Desktop Dynamic Island widget for XWidget.
- So click on the Desktop Dynamic Island image and its page will open.
- Now scroll down the page until you reach the green Download for free button and click on it. The Desktop Dynamic Island will be downloaded to your PC.
- Once the download is complete, the Desktop Dynamic Island will appear in its black pill form on your desktop, perhaps above the three widgets on your screen.
- So if you haven’t already done so, right-click on each of the three widgets and press the Vicinity Button.
- Now Dynamic Island is ready to use on your desktop.
You can drag and place it anywhere – at the top of the screen, under the webcam, or in the center of the screen.
Have fun with Dynamic Island on your desktop
Dynamic Island on your PC gives you a new way to access and interact with some important and fun features. It expands when clicked to reveal a feature and further opens into a rectangular bubble to present some feature elements.
Right-click on this black island to open the menu and assign another function to view and use.
From the menu, click one of the following items to use with the island: Date, Time, Weather, Storage, Battery, Player, and Shutdown. Let’s examine them briefly.
1. Stay up to date with the date, time and calendar
Right-click Dynamic Island on your screen and select appointment time. Now when you click Dynamic Island again, it expands to show the date and time. If you click on the calendar icon, the island will expand to also show the current month’s calendar. Click the calendar icon again to close the monthly calendar.
2. View weather conditions
Choose weather in the menu and Dynamic Island displays part of the weather information, e.g. B. whether it is clear or cloudy. Click on the black pill to expand it and see weather status and temperature. Click the weather icon to view the weather for the next five days. Click the icon again to close it.
3. See Memory Used
Choose Memory in the menu to see how much memory is currently being used by the system.
4. Know the battery status and battery percentage
Select Battery from the menu to view the battery percentage and whether the PC is plugged in and charging or unplugged and running on battery power.
5. Access the music player and control songs from Dynamic Island
Dynamic Island acts as a controller for your music player. Choose player from the menu and click on the black island to expand it. Then click the orange dotted line to the right of the pill to open the basic player controls below.
To make it work, click on the player icon, the triangle with circular lines above it. It opens Windows Media Player, which is the default, and plays songs in your playlist. Close the player. You will see the name of the song playing is at the top of the Dynamic Island player. You can set others through the player settings in the menu.
6. A cool way to restart or shut down your PC
Choose Switch off Click Dynamic Island in the menu and use the shutdown and restart options on the island for your PC.
You will also see your PC’s name along with a picture of a man on Dynamic Island. You can personalize this image to reflect your PC or style by following the steps below:
- Open File Explorer and click the documents tab to open it.
- You will find the XWidget Folder in Documents. Open it and then open the widgets folder inside.
- You will find the Desktop dynamic island folder in it. Open it and look for the .png image with the title face– This is the same image that appears on Dynamic Island with the name of your PC. Delete this preset face Picture.
- Now select any image you want to appear next to your PC’s name on Dynamic Island. It could be your face or something that reflects your passion, like music. For best results, resize the image to 200×200 pixels and save it as a PNG file. You can easily resize pictures with the Photos app, which also allows you to easily create videos.
- Now name this image as face and add it to that Desktop dynamic island folder. In the screenshot below, the image of a person playing the guitar has replaced the default face image.
- For the change to take effect, open the taskbar from the taskbar. Right click on the XWidget icon and select Exit to close Dynamic Island.
- Now double click on the XWidget shortcut created on your desktop.
The dynamic island will reappear and your selected image will be displayed when you choose the “Shut down” option.
Make using Windows fun and cool with Dynamic Island
Adding Dynamic Island allows you to get creative with some key features and quickly view important data on your Windows PC. It looks so great on your desktop too. So get the Dynamic Island and enjoy.
If you use an Android phone, why not add the fun of Dynamic Island to your phone today?
