Apple Status Bar

Another quick post but essential. Apple’s “status bar” is a tricky one. It is the black band that runs along the top of screens with carrier / signal info, time and battery life. When designing applications, do we allow for this? After looking into Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, I found that you can get rid of it but Apple recommend not doing so. Unless it is a fullscreen application. Is Cyclo a fullscreen application? My gut says yes it is fullscreen. So, for moment I’m going with it not being there. A better scenario could be that it is there when viewing the interface but disappears when pressing “play”. Pressing “stop” would then return the status bar. I can see why users may need to check battery life, time etc but when in “play” mode need fullscreen focus. It would be possible, and easy to test I guess.