According to a source who spoke with 9to5Mac, the large pill-shaped combination cutout planned for the iPhone 14 Pro models will display privacy indicators for the microphone and camera.
The notch on the iPhone 14 Pro models will be replaced by two separate pill-shaped and hole-punch cutouts that will house the TrueDepth camera system hardware for Face ID, but as we learned today, the cutouts will be combined together using software, appearing as a single long, pill-shaped cutout when the iPhone is in use.
The space between the two cutouts will apparently be used to display the orange and green dots that indicate when an app activates the camera or microphone. When the hardware is active, these indicators are currently displayed to the right of the notch, but putting them front and centre on the iPhone’s display will make it more obvious when the camera and microphone are in use.
Having the green dot front and centre when the camera is active will make using an iPhone feel more like using a Mac. When the webcam is in use on a Mac, there is a green indicator light that cannot be turned off, and it is located right next to the camera.
Apple is reportedly going to allow users to tap on the green and orange dots to get more information about which apps are using the iPhone’s hardware. That information is currently available in Control Center, with Apple listing apps that have recently used the camera, microphone, and location.
According to 9to5Mac, Apple will also redesign the Camera app, moving most of the controls to the top of the screen to give users a better view of the camera preview, but this change is “still not completely locked in.”
When the privacy indicators are turned off, the space between the two cutouts on the iPhone 14 Pro models is blacked out, giving the appearance of a single cutout. The iPhone 14 models will have a standard notch and thus will most likely retain the same hardware indicators as the iPhone 13 models.
