This iPhone 14 Pro Dynamic Island rip-off is so shameless it's hard to hate

Realme Mini Capsule
(Image credit: Realme)

Apple caused quite a stir when it released the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max with their Dynamic Island. It looked strange at first, but now we kinda dig it. And so does Android OEM Realme, it seems.

Enter, the Realme C55, a new Android phone that sits at the budget end of the price range — so very much not in the same league as Apple's best iPhone. But the two phones do have something in common...

They both have a Dynamic Island.

Dynamic Mini Capsule Island

Realme calls its Dynamic Island something different, but it's very similar indeed. The name is Mini Capsule, but it offers much of the same functionality that we've come to expect from Apple's island.

For example, GSMArena reports that Realme says the Mini Capsule will display things like current charging status, battery alerts, step count, and more. Although that last one, plus walking distance information, won't be available on day one. You'll need a future software update to get them.

In some ways, and as much as this is clearly a Dynamic Island rip-off no matter which way you slice it, we kinda like what Realme is doing here. And why shouldn't it?

There's one place where Realme isn't copying Apple, though. The C55 still has a 3.5mm headphone jack which Apple nixed many years ago, but in other ways, Realme's offering actually trumps the iPhone.

For starters, this thing can charge at 33W, which is impressive and better than the iPhone's maximum of just 20W. There's also a 64-megapixel camera, although we doubt it's up to par with Apple's 48-megapixel whopper thanks to the awesome onboard image processing power of the iPhone. 

Oh, and there's USB-C. So maybe Apple will be copying Realme when we get to iPhone 15 time this September. Maybe we can expect the pedestrian 20W charging speed to be increased at the same time. Assuming it isn't limited to only Apple's cables, that is.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.