Apple iPhone 18 Pro Live Activity support faces limitation

The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max feature a reduced Dynamic Island designed to support up to three simultaneous Live Activities under iOS 27. However, users and code explorers have discovered a limitation in how this feature functions.

While Apple promoted the ability to view more information at once, the third Live Activity slot is currently restricted to system-level activities, such as navigation or ‘Now Playing’ music controls. Third-party applications are unable to occupy this third position. Consequently, if a user has two third-party Live Activities running, they cannot add a third app-based activity to the Dynamic Island.

It remains unclear whether this is a permanent design choice by Apple to reserve the space for system functions or a temporary software limitation within the current version of iOS.