Dark theme is finally making its way to Android this year and the upcoming flavour, Q (yet to be named) will be getting it later this year. The feature got a brief introduction at the Google I/O 2019 keynote on Tuesday, but we’re hopeful that the Android team will be sharing more about its utility in the coming months.
They didn’t actually give a timeframe as to when the dark theme will be offered to the end user, but if you’re on the Android Q Beta program, the mode is already available for your registered device.
We got a chance to explore dark theme on the Pixel 3 XL and here’s everything we managed to find with the feature till now.
The theme can be enabled by following these steps.
Dark Theme on Android Q Beta
- Go to Settings
- Click on Display
- Select dark or light in Theme
- All apps supporting the feature switch to the new theme
If you want to quickly switch to dark mode, you can also just switch on battery saver mode and Android Q will turn on the dark theme to save some battery life.
It’s worth noting that Google will gradually offering the dark theme for all its products. Maps, Calendar and Gmail are yet to switch to the new theme, even if the default theme you choose is dark.
With respect to third party apps, Twitter already supports dark mode, while other Facebook products like Instagram and even WhatsApp are yet to get the option. WhatsApp team is said to be diligently working on the dark mode for Android as well as iOS, and we’re hoping that the official release comes out in the next few months.
This will allow Google to give Android Q the full-fledged dark theme treatment, something which it said will help in improving battery life of your phone.
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