Google's message to developers is about dark themes

Google has seen the light – and the light must prompt developers to use dark themes.

Why? Dark themes increase the autonomy of our smartphones. This was announced at Google's Android summit this month. Google recognizes the value of dark themes in Android apps. The tendency to encourage dark themes in Android apps has been reinforced by a graph comparing battery drains and gains associated with different colors.

XDA developers presented some of Google's conclusions: brightness affects energy consumption and battery life in essentially linear fashion; even with maximum brightness, a dark theme can reduce battery usage up to 63% on AMOLED displays; The value of color pixels can affect power consumption, "white being the most energy-intensive color".

Chris Burns in SlashGear commented on the results. "The first and most obvious piece of information Google shared was about the brightness and power of the screen, which should be pretty obvious: more brightness means faster power consumption. It was not always perfectly linear – but it's so close to the line well were a straight line, one for one. "

After all, research can now quantify the battery savings needed with darker interfaces, so why not?

After all? A number of technical writers: Duh. We knew it.

Chris Welch in The edge: "We have long known that dark mode / night applications can extend the battery life on smartphones with OLED displays … individual pixels need to work less on the darker areas of the screen. ;screen."

Antonio Villas-Boas to Internal business: "Dark mode is an option that changes the general color theme of an operating system or application in the dark.It has long been associated with a better battery life of devices, in particular mobile devices. "

Authors who thought about Google's positions on dark themes took note as an option. Vaidyanathan Subramaniam in Notebookcheck: "Hope this means that future versions of Android will have an option for a native mode-based dark operating system."

Arol Wright in XDA developers pointed out that the parry of Google with dark themes was not totally exaggerated (forgive the color reference), because the steps in this direction have already been indicated. "Google has recently begun to introduce dark modes to many of its apps, including Messages and YouTube, an initiative that has been applauded by many sophisticated users, but also by regular users, and now they seem To introduce dark modes on their apps, too. "

In the meantime, "it's good to remember that the dark theme will not suit everyone," wrote Fazeel Ashraf in TechEngage, which is nevertheless one more reason to defend the idea of ​​options. "Having white text on a black background is not everyone's cup of tea … Nevertheless, giving users the option to choose does not hurt anyone."

The readers' comments on Google's epiphany regarding battery life and theme preferences were more emotional, than it was about time they said something. "You are more than 10 years late, your brains team has finally arrived at the same result myself and millions of others have arrived by the time Android has fallen? was such a reader comment on XDA developers.

So what comes next? Arol Wright in XDA developers had an answer. "Given Google's new position on this topic, we should have more Google's dark apps in the coming months, and maybe, finally, a dark system-wide mode to full share for Android that applies everywhere. " Wright's advice was: "If you're a developer, it would be a good idea to work on a dark mode for your application, at least like a toggle.

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