Dynamic Island stopwatch icon not visible with other activities

Last year, I created a shortcut which starts a stopwatch as soon as I enter a specific app. It works well in the dynamic island when no other activity is present, but when another activity is already there (for instance spotify), it will shrink down to a black circle without the stopwatch icon visible. Bug since iOS 27.01 and updated to 27.2 was working well in iOS 26.

As soon as the stopwatch starts (it will appear large over the total width of the screen), it starts counting and if I swipe it up fast, the icon is sometimes (50% of the time) visible in the small dynamic island. Furthermore, I tried deleting the shortcut and creating it again.

Could anyone help me out?

Posted on Nov 2, 2026 5:43 AM

1 reply

WheelieNick

Level 9 (74,110 points)

Nov 2, 2026 7:43 AM in response to jelle242

Hi there

please try this

1. Change the Dynamic Island Layout Manually

If your stopwatch is shrunk to a blank circle next to Spotify, you can manually override which app takes center stage:

Swipe left or right across the Dynamic Island.
Swiping inward will collapse or swap the active priorities, often forcing the system to re-render the missing stopwatch icon into the primary slot.

2. Switch from "Stopwatch" to "Timer" in Shortcuts

The default iOS Clock app handles Timers with much higher system priority and better-optimized Dynamic Island assets than the Stopwatch.

Open your Shortcuts app and edit the automation.
Replace the Start Stopwatch action with Start Timer (you can set it for a long duration if you just want it to count up/down, or use a specific duration if applicable).
Timers use a native system asset that is explicitly coded to shrink down into a tiny ring icon without glitching out in multi-activity mode.