'iPhone X' Split Status Bar Leak Shows Off Animated Battery Icon and Screen Recording Indicator

Amid the leaked release of the golden master of iOS 11 last night, developers Steve Troughton-Smith and Guilherme Rambo shared a few interesting tidbits about how the split status bar on the OLED "iPhone X" will work (via 9to5Mac). Falling in line with previous rumors, the iPhone X's status bar will show the time of day on the left of the "notch" and cellular signal strength, Wi-Fi, and battery will be located on the right.

These "ears" of the iPhone X will also be animated in a few ways -- when you plug the device into a power source to charge it, the battery icon grows slightly larger (lower right image) to indicate a successful connection and then minimizes back to its original size. Rambo shared a video of this animated icon in action on his Twitter account.

Images via @stroughtonsmith

Here’s a closer look at the new ‘split’ status bar. The charging glyph zooms in for a second when you plug in /via @_inside pic.twitter.com/orBnHGxaYB

— Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) September 9, 2017

There's also a new method to indicate when screen recording is on or when you're taking a phone call. On the iPhone X, the time on the left side of the notch will be highlighted in red for when screen recording is on, or green to indicate that you're in a call but outside of the Phone app. This will replace the current "double height" indicator bar on iOS 10 that pushes down the status bar and displays messages to remind you about apps running in the background.

Here’s what the ‘double height’ statusbar looks like — screen recording, or in-call. The ears are interactive pic.twitter.com/bdacrEYMCw

— Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) September 9, 2017

The breadcrumb trail icon is also staying on the iPhone X, but now it'll reside just below the time, linking you back to the most recently used app with one tap.


Troughton-Smith theorized that the small dot on the right side of the status bar might indicate "pages" for the right ear that you could tab through by tapping that area of the iPhone X. Further digging led the developer to change his theory to describe the dot as some kind of "network activity indicator," because it pulsates from time to time and vanishes in Airplane Mode.

This theory was further corroborated in a separate video shared by Guilherme Rambo, where the dot in this area of the status bar moved back and forth whenever a piece of media began loading on the smartphone. It's also worth noting that the location services indicator arrow is now sitting to the right of the time.

When loading media such as video, the new statusbar shows a different activity indicator pic.twitter.com/fujCF5i50I

— Guilherme Rambo (@_inside) September 9, 2017

The iOS 11 GM has leaked just three days ahead of Apple's September 12 media event, where the company will officially announce what is now expected to be called the iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, third-generation Apple Watch, and more.