Google told the world a couple of months ago that it was wrong to push developers to use white backgrounds on their apps. A study the company conducted revealed that dark backgrounds and Dark Modes reduce energy consumption significantly on devices featuring OLED screens. Fast forward to early January, and a Google engineer practically confirmed that the next major version of Android will bring you the Dark Mode you’ve always wanted.
Considering that most Android flagships rock OLED screens, Google’s decision to create a Dark Mode for Android should further increase battery efficiency on those devices.
First spotted by Android Police, a mention from Lukasz Zbylut in the Chromium bug tracker noted that Dark Mode is an approved Android Q feature. Interestingly, the note was posted back in October, well before Google presented its study about energy consumption on Android devices.
Dark mode is an approved Q feature. The Q team wants to ensure that all preloaded apps support dark mode natively. In order to ship dark mode successfully, we need all UI elements to be ideally themed dark by May 2019.
The Googler also said there will be a master setting for Dark Mode under the Display menu of the Settings app.
That note, as 9to5Google points out, was turned to private, which seems to confirm further that Google is indeed working on a Dark Mode for Android Q.
Google’s Android Q will be available in beta version at some point in May, after Google I/O 2019, which explains why Google is making sure that all preloaded apps support the mode in time for the Android Q beta launch.
