One of the most important innovations of 2019 in the smartphone field is certainly the arrival of Dark Mode on many popular applications and on the main operating systems. We think of the dark system theme of Android 10, iOS 13 and many software, from GMail to the Play Store, passing through Instagram. In short, the last twelve months have been very important for the spread of Dark Mode, a feature requested for years by fans.
However, there is still a long way to go to “unify” the user experience with dark shades. 2020 seems to be the year when the mode will finally become “global”, that is, available both for the basic functionality of the operating system and for many third-party applications. Let’s take stock of the situation, going to analyze the various proposals of the companies.
What is Dark Mode for?
Before going to see what are the solutions announced by the companies and the various rumors for 2020, it is good to answer in detail one of the most common questions after the enormous attention paid to this functionality: “What is Dark Mode for?“Well, the main function of the dark theme is clearly not to strain the eyes too much during the night. In fact, a less blue light than the classic standard.
However, there is also another aspect that many often underestimate: the savings in terms of battery. In fact, the AMOLED and OLED screens physically turn off the pixels to reproduce dark shades.
Understand that in this way the autonomy can be easily increased, since the pixels are actually turned off. Dark Mode can therefore save a lot of battery when using certain applications.
Many think that the dark theme uses totally black pixels. It is good to clarify this aspect: in fact, several developers have decided to use dark gray as the dark mode color. The reason? The giants of Silicon Valley believe that in this way the dark theme is more pleasing to the eye and several possible problems such as “black bleeding”, or the appearance of unpleasant “halos” while scrolling, are also avoided. Obviously all the necessary tests have been carried out and, as pointed out by XDA Developers, the consumption of dark gray compared to black is absolutely negligible.
Where the dark theme will arrive in 2020
Despite the obvious benefits we’ve highlighted above, there are still many popular applications that don’t implement Dark Mode. The most obvious case is certainly that of WhatsApp, which is conducting numerous tests before officially introducing the dark theme in the stable version. Recently we have had the opportunity to try the Dark Mode through the Beta of the Android application, but the functionality can only be activated thanks to a “hidden” procedure discovered by colleagues from overseas. In short, probably the instant messaging platform will receive the dark theme in the course of 2020, but for the moment there are no precise dates. A “trick” is available on iOS that activates a kind of Dark Mode.
Another application on which there is some mystery is Facebook. The Dark Mode has in fact arrived to some users, but at the moment the company of Mark Zuckerberg has not yet finished the rollout and many are starting to think that the functionality will arrive for everyone only during 2020. In the meantime, the dark theme has also landed on browsers for selected people.
In short, Facebook and WhatsApp are clearly the most popular software that should receive Dark Mode for everyone in the coming year.
However, there are companies that have far bigger plans for the dark theme. In fact, the ultimate goal is to provide a completely dark user experience. This is already happening, in some ways, on iOS, given that Apple has implemented a feature called Smart Reversal.
The latter simply reverses the colors of what appears on the screen and therefore you can use it to activate a sort of Dark Mode for most applications. Smart reverse has been introduced since iOS 11.
This possibility is also available on various Android smartphones, as you can see on the official Google website. In this case, the dark theme is usually accessible starting from Android 9 Pie. In short, large companies have already run for cover under a certain point of view, but it is clear that this feature cannot completely replace the official Dark Modes implemented by the developers.
In this sense, Xiaomi has announced that MIUI 12, arriving in 2020, will bring with it a dark global theme. At the moment there is not much information about it, but the Chinese company may have some interesting surprises in store for users. Will we finally have a “unified” user experience in dark shades next year? We will see, the road seems to be that way.
