I’ve never been a big fan of Apple’s dynamic island. Sure, the notch replacement is sometimes helpful for checking songs on Spotify, following directions in Apple Maps, and keeping up with my fantasy football scores, but most of the time, it just sits there – heavy on the island, light on the action . In other words, it’s like a notch with a few extra features here and there. However, I knew I couldn’t get rid of it because it contains the hardware required for Face ID.

However, I think it’s time for Apple to step out of the walled garden, as Android brands are copying Dynamic Island, but they’re doing it better. OnePlus’ instant alerts are exactly what I hoped for in a dynamic island, and I’m happy to admit that.

I first discovered OnePlus’ Live Alerts in the best possible way — during the process of setting up the OnePlus 13. I’m more focused on the promised Apple Intelligence rollout and comparing the iPhone 16 Pro to anything else I can get my hands on. So I was so focused on the actual dynamic island that I didn’t realize that a simpler, smoother option was right in front of me.

Then I picked up a OnePlus 13 review unit and the matching OnePlus Buds Pro 3 at Midnight Ocean, and I did what anyone would do – I set up Spotify and took a new pair of “earbuds” “Get to work. After a song or two, I noticed a small but somewhat familiar oval on either side of the selfie camera at the top of the 6.8-inch display. Sure enough, the OnePlus 13 let me know which song my daily list had been changed to. But unlike the iPhone 16 Pro, which I’ve had for just over a month, the island disappears as soon as I pause the music. marvelous.

Of course, my first try at Live Alerts only left me wanting more. I replayed the music I’d just paused and clicked on the alert to see if OnePlus would let me interact with it differently than Apple’s simple controls. Indeed. At least with Spotify, if you click Live Alert, it opens a card that takes up about a third of your display, offering control over your playback, media output devices, and your last four playlists or artists – pretty much. what you want. The level of interactivity makes it easy to control your music without falling down Spotify’s rabbit hole.

I knew immediately that this was the feel I wanted for Apple’s dynamic island. I want a tap on a card to give me some interaction with whatever I’m doing, and a long tap to open an app – the opposite of how Apple handles things. This kind of interaction allows me to use my phone less often, which is also the original intention of simplified interfaces like Dynamic Island.

But more importantly, I think OnePlus’s approach to stacking instant alerts is better than Apple’s. Now, when you expand a card in the Dynamic Island stack, that’s it – you only see that card. You can keep an eye on the kitchen timer or pause a Spotify playlist, but not both at the same time. However, with real-time reminders, you can expand all the cards at once, keeping you on your toes in the kitchen while keeping track of what’s going on in the final week of the NFL regular season. It’s like you have multiple widgets stacked on top of each other, but I like that you can clear them all at the end.

Perhaps that’s what I love most about instant alerts—they feel like widgets and are easy to use, but they disappear when you’re done using them. Unlike Dynamic Island, which always takes up consistent space around the entire Face ID module, there’s no sign that there’s even an instant alert interface unless you’re using it. If your phone is idle, you only see the punch hole for the selfie camera – no extra dark area, no indication that you were listening to music previously, just an uninterrupted status bar at the top of the phone. it’s great. However, I still think instant alerts can go further.

One problem with pill-like notifications, both on Android and iOS, is that support is still limited. Currently, Dynamic Island can send you alerts through some third-party apps like Uber and Google Maps, but it’s far from widespread. Unfortunately, OnePlus’ instant alerts are more limited. Currently, music playback controls work with Spotify but not YouTube Music, which greatly limits your options for streaming services. OnePlus also doesn’t offer instant alerts for ride-sharing or navigation apps, which makes juggling too many tasks at once challenging.

Furthermore, OnePlus isn’t the only Android brand with its sights set on conquering Apple’s dynamic island. Soon, Samsung will launch its own version as part of One UI 7, interestingly called the Now Bar. I’m not sure I like this name, but it looks like an interesting – if somewhat topsy-turvy – alternative. Rather than placing controls at the top of a tall, thin display, Samsung’s Now Bar sits between lock screen shortcuts when the phone is locked, then switches to the top status bar when the phone is unlocked.

In some ways, I think I’ll like Now Bar better than Live Alerts when I get my hands on it, but that’s not always the case. I’m glad it’s easier to get to from the bottom of the screen, but now the bar becomes no better than the dynamic island if I unlock the phone. It limits me to one app or timer at a time and I’m right back asking for more.

Ultimately, I think for any Android brand that wants to replace Dynamic Island, the solution has to come from Google itself. Currently, the different approaches fit perfectly into the age-old “together, not the same” mantra, but they do so at the expense of a cohesive experience. They support different third-party apps, layouts, and click-based controls, which makes them all fall behind Apple’s single, unified experience.

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