There’s a lot of hype surrounding dark mode, a simple toggle that lets you change the background color of an app window to black. Some enjoy it simply for aesthetic reasons and because it allows for a slightly customized look compared to the default design. Others find it easier on the eyes, especially at night or in a dark room. The feature yields battery-saving benefits, too, if your device has an OLED screen. In fact, Google claims that black requires far less power to display on-screen than white, so don’t be surprised if you see a system-level dark mode incorporated in Android Q, even if it’s not yet in the beta. Dark mode can be found in a bunch of popular apps, from workplace collaboration chat app Slack and Microsoft’s Outlook email client to Google Chrome and YouTube. You can also find it within game console operating systems like the Nintendo Switch and Xbox One S / X and increasingly on anything that has a color display. If users request a dark mode feature in an app (they do, frequently), chances are good that it will appear at some point. We’re tracking all of the latest dark mode developments below.
