Hi everyone, I'm Rufaro, the maker of NotchIsland. We launch here on Tuesday 3 November, and I'd love some early feedback before then.
NotchIsland turns the MacBook notch into a Dynamic Island: a true-black surface that grows out of the notch when something is live (Now Playing, timers, AirPods battery, downloads, notifications) and disappears when nothing is. Hover for a readout; click for a shade with quick toggles, a timer, your next meeting with a Join button, a file Shelf and clipboard history. Option-Space opens a launcher with app search, a calculator and unit conversion. It is forever free and open source (MIT), pure Swift, macOS 13+ on Apple silicon.
Three questions for you:
Which live activities would matter most to you, and which would you switch off?
What would you want in the shade that isn't there yet?
Which apps should Now Playing support beyond Music, Spotify, VLC and Chromium browsers?
Hi Product Hunt! I'm Rufaro, the maker of NotchIsland.
Every MacBook since 2021 has a notch that does nothing. I wanted the iPhone's Dynamic Island on my Mac, so I built it: one true-black surface that grows out of the notch when something is happening and disappears when nothing is.
What it does:
Live activities in the notch: volume, charger, low battery, AirPods battery, downloads, timers
Notifications mirrored into the island and grouped by app in the shade
Hover for a readout: clock, status chips, battery, unread count, next event, Now Playing, last notification
Click for the shade: quick toggles, a timer, your next meeting with a Join button (Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex), Now Playing with a scrubber and volume, a Shelf you can drag files onto and AirDrop from, and clipboard history
Option-Space launcher: fuzzy app search, calculator, unit conversion, file search, quick actions
Shortcuts integration: write a small JSON file and NotchIsland shows it as a custom live activity
It is pure Swift (SwiftUI and AppKit), no Electron, and it is forever free and open source under MIT. macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon. It is signed ad-hoc for now, so on first launch right-click the app and choose Open.
I would love your feedback: what breaks, and what you would want next. Bug reports and feature requests are welcome on GitHub Issues, and pull requests too.
Website: https://edwardrem.github.io/NotchIsland/
GitHub: https://github.com/Edwardrem/NotchIsland
Download: https://github.com/Edwardrem/NotchIsland/releases