Summary

Gruber adds a section to his iPhone 18 Pro review covering a detail he initially omitted: the under-display Face ID sensor and its effect on the Dynamic Island. Moving Face ID beneath the display makes the Dynamic Island's physical cutout smaller, but paradoxically expands the usable content area, now accommodating three simultaneous Live Activities instead of two. There is a minor visual tradeoff — pixels over the hidden sensor appear slightly softer than the surrounding display. Gruber frames this as one more step in Apple's decade-long march from the notch toward a fully uninterrupted display.

Key Insight

Moving Face ID under the display creates a paradox where the Dynamic Island's cutout shrinks but its functional content area grows — a characteristically Apple trade-off that advances the long-term goal of a true all-display iPhone.

Spicy Quotes (click to share)

• 2

  The permanent cutout for the Dynamic Island is smaller, but the usable space for content in the Dynamic Island is now larger.

• 4

  Even my middle-aged eyes can see that the pixels on top of the Face ID sensor aren't quite as sharp as those on the rest of the screen.

• 2

  The time of day in the status bar looks like it's just a tad fuzzy, like the text isn't anti-aliased correctly. No big deal, and you need to look for it to notice it.

• 2

  Putting Face ID under the display on the iPhone 18 Pro is a significant step toward that.

• 2

  I don't know if they're ever going to get there, but the goal, obviously, is to eventually put all sensors under the display, creating a genuine all-display front.

Tone

observational, precise, measured