FramePad

Devices · 14 August 2026

Where 9:16 titles survive the status bar

How the iPhone Dynamic Island, Android punch-holes, and in-app top chrome steal the first 10–14% of a 1080×1920 frame — and where to put a title instead.

By the FramePad editorial desk · 12 min read · Updated 2026-08-28

The panel is not the player

A title that clears the iPhone status bar in Photos.app can still sit under TikTok’s Following / For You tabs. The operating system chrome and the app chrome stack. Design against the stack. On a notched or Dynamic Island iPhone, the top 10% of a 1080×1920 TikTok is occupied before a caption exists. On Instagram Stories the progress segments sit even lower in the design — treat 14% as gone.

Android punch-holes steal less vertical room and more of a corner. A title that is centred below y = 12% survives both. A title that hugs the top-right does not.

Numbers we actually measured

On iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 16 Pro Max, TikTok’s tab cluster (Live / Following / For You / search) occupies roughly 192 pixels of a 1920-tall design canvas — 10%. Stories progress bars plus the profile row occupy about 14%. Reels is quieter at the top, about 9%. Shorts puts search and a camera or wordmark in the top-right at about 9%. Those figures are reconstructed on a 1080×1920 canvas, not on the physical panel, which is denser.

The methodology page records how we align a screenshot to that canvas. The short version: photograph the live player, scale the screenshot so the 9:16 picture matches 1080×1920, then read chrome in design pixels. Do not read CSS points on a 3× display and call them pixels.

A working title band

If the same master will run on TikTok, Reels, Shorts, and Stories, put display type between y = 16% and y = 32% — high enough to be a hook, low enough to clear every top cluster we currently measure, including Stories progress bars. That band is about 307 pixels tall at 1080×1920. It is enough for a three-word title at 64–80 pixels, not a paragraph.

If the cut is Reels-only you can sit a little higher. If it is Stories-only you cannot. Versioning a title position per app is only worth it if you already version the file. One conservative master is cheaper.

Motion titles and the first twelve frames

Animated intros that slam a logo into the top-left in the first twelve frames will be covered on device even if they look fine in QuickTime. Delay the logo until it can sit in the working title band, or accept a silent first beat with no type. CTR on Stories is a tap-right; if the first readable type is under a progress bar, the tap happens first.

Lower-thirds are the opposite mistake — they feel “broadcast,” and they sit in the caption well. Put the ident in the title band or in the native field. Not both. Not at y = 4%.

Accessibility makes the top worse, not better

Larger Accessibility Sizes on iOS expand native captions at the bottom. They do not shrink the status bar. They can, on some builds, increase the tab cluster. Leave gutter. The overlay is already conservative. Do not shave it because a Figma mock used a home-button iPhone from 2017.

Confirm on a phone with the font size you actually use, then on a phone with the font size a parent would use. The second one is the one that covers your type.

Open the matching tool

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