Android Q Beta adds Dark Theme

The Verge

It’s a trend we’re seeing across platforms and it’s making a system-wide debut on Android Q Beta 3. Dark Mode, or Dark Theme as Google calls it, comes to the latest version of the operating system that just dropped. And as The Verge’s Dieter Bohn points out, it’s true black and not dark grey, which theoretically could mean this could help save battery life. To activate it, you just need to pull down the Quick Settings menu, tap a button, and watch the interface change. If you use battery saver mode on Android 10 Q, that’ll also trigger Dark Theme.

As expected, the feature is rolling out to first-party Android apps. For third-party developers, Google plans to develop an API to let these apps know when Dark Theme is on, so their app switches to it as well. The company is giving developers an option to add one line of code into their app to create a “quick-and-dirty” version of Dark Theme. This might be a hack, but it could be used in the meantime before they implement a more elegant Dark Theme—if they choose to do so.