Android Q Could Unlock Native ‘Dark Mode’ for Google Apps in 2019

It’s confirmed that Android Q supports dark mode feature for pre-loaded Google apps like YouTube, Maps and more.

This is what dark mode could offer to Chrome users. 

(Photo: MSPoweruser)

Every Android user would agree that having a dark mode option for apps is not only visually appealing, but better for the phone’s power efficiency as well. Much to everyone’s delight, Google has seemingly confirmed that its next Android version, called Q (yet to get a dessert name) will support dark mode for native Google apps by default.

This news hardly comes as a surprise, especially after Google, at a recent event admitted that using apps or even designing them for dark mode is a good way to preserve your phone’s battery life.

During the presentation at a recent developer event, the search giant added how dark mode can use 43 percent less power at full brightness than "normal mode" in apps like YouTube, which traditionally uses a lot of white.

Dark mode essentially changes the overall colour theme of an operating system (OS) or applications to the colour black. Black uses less battery power as the screen does not need to be lit up more. The use of dark mode for Android Q was confirmed by a Chromium bug tracker Lukasz Zbylut, reported first by Android Police who noted that dark mode on Android Q is a confirmed feature.

The tech giant has reportedly acknowledged its mistake of encouraging app developers to use the colour white for their applications, including its own apps.

Dark Mode on YouTube is available for all devices. (Photo: The Quint)

Dark mode is an approved Q feature. The Q team wants to ensure that all pre loaded 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.

<a href="https://www.androidpolice.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/chrome_2019-01-06_18-07-58.png">Chromium post</a>

What’s interesting for us from this post (now made inaccessible to non-Google developers) is the May timeline given to Android Q to have pre-loaded apps support dark mode natively.

And May is usually the timeframe when the upcoming Android version is made available to beta testers, right on cue with the Google I/O developer event.

Select between these themes for your phone. (Photo: The Quint)

This probably means Google apps like YouTube (which already lets you switch to dark mode), Chrome, Messages and Maps among others are likely to support the feature in 2019.

In addition to this, we also expect WhatsApp to support the mode this year. It has already been offered for test to developers, as reported a few weeks back.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this one, and looking forward to testing it out, whenever the Google team plans on releasing it for developers and early sets of users.