Use This App to Add a Dynamic Island to Your MacBook Cutout
Ever since the iPhone got Dynamic Island, Mac users have wanted it. The new MacBook Pros, with their notch and large menu bar, end up wasting a lot of screen real estate. Wouldn’t it be great to get the same interactive features as Dynamic Island on Mac? An interactive music player, a place to launch shortcuts, or some neat utility? NotchNook is the app that makes it all possible.
Multimedia, calendar and shortcuts
NotchNook has an interactive media player that is very reminiscent of Dynamic Island. To the left of the cutout you can see the album cover, and to the right is an animated waveform. When the track changes, the cutout also animates. There are also gestures. You can swipe left or right on the notch to quickly change tracks.
However, things get a lot more interesting when you press the notch. The application will expand and display three sections. There is a more detailed media player that also shows media playback in the browser, not just in your apps. Then there is the Mirror option. Click on it to get a small live camera image that you can use to quickly check yourself before you make a call.
The section in the middle is quite interesting if you are a shortcut user. Here you can add up to four shortcuts for quick access. This can be a good way to activate frequently used shortcuts without going into the menu bar.
You can also go to Settings to enable calendar viewing on your Nook. Features like notes and tasks are coming soon.
Tray for easier file management
Personally, I find the Tray function quite useful. It serves as a place to temporarily collect files from different places before publishing them.
Drag any file from Finder onto the notch and you’ll see the tray. Drag files to the left side of the cutout to save them in a collection for later use.
If you drag files to the right side of the tray, the AirDrop menu will instantly open and you can quickly share them on your iPhone or any other Apple device nearby. I often use NotchNook for this as I often share files with my iPad and it saves me two right-clicks.
However, in its current form, the function of the tray is quite simple. The only way to remove files from the taskbar is to drag them, and you won’t be able to do anything else with them, such as running any automation or even creating a share link (these features are available in drag-and-drop apps like Dropover ). .
Overall, though, NotchNook is really well-designed software, and while there are plenty of ways to integrate media players, calendar , and shortcuts into the menu bar, no other app does it with this level of sophistication and style. The app is available as a two-day free trial, but then costs either $3 per month or $25 for a full purchase. Subscribing to the utility does not make much sense, so we recommend purchasing the application right away. You can also get 35% off by tweeting about the app.