According to a number of reports today, the next version of Android would include a “dark mode” – something that’s been a long-time feature request from those who prefer the dark-themed and power saving option that’s already available in apps like YouTube and Twitter. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
News that Android was getting its own dark mode emerged from a post by a Google engineer on the company’s Issue Tracker forums, which was then spotted by a Reddit user. (Android Police, The Next Web and others noted this, too.)
The Google engineer had responded on the thread where a user had requested dark mode, saying that “our engineering team has added this feature,” and that “it will be available in a future Android release.”
As you can imagine, this got people pretty excited.
Dark mode has become an increasingly popular theme in a variety of third-party apps, and users have since been clamoring for a way to easily toggle on a dark mode across their operating system entirely. (Some Android devices had supported an automatically applied light and dark theme, based on your wallpaper, but users still want a manual, system-wide setting.)
While that could still be in the works, we suppose, the Google engineer’s comments did not mean to refer to a universal Android dark mode, as it turns out.
Instead, from what we heard and since confirmed, what the engineer was referring to was improved support for dark mode as a feature for developers to implement in their own Android applications. That is, if an app developer wants to build in a dark mode, Google is making that an easier process for them in a future release of Android.
The engineer has also since clarified his remarks, too.
In a new post he writes:
…What we *have* added in a future Android release is a developer-facing setting (via Developer Options) to toggle the -night UI mode qualifier, which will make it easier for developers to create and test apps that implement night mode. This qualifier has been in the platform since Froyo (SDK 8) and globally modifiable via UiModeManager since Marshmallow (SDK 23); however, there was never an explicit toggle made available anywhere in Settings.
If it’s any consolation, we will also not be adding Hot Dog Mode (where all UI elements are yellow and red).
What, no hot dog mode? At least he’s got a sense of humor about the whole thing.
Image credit, top: 9to5Google
