There seems to have been a bit of a backlash on Twitter to news about an upcoming feature that looked like it was coming to WhatsApp. It wasn’t long ago that we were bringing you advance screenshots of how WhatsApp’s new dark mode will look when it finally lands on the app. Now, however, this has all changed and it looks like WhatsApp won’t be getting a dark mode at all. Users aren’t happy.
There has been no sign of a dark mode in the last two beta versions of WhatsApp for Android
Dark modes really have been taking the tech world by storm recently. App after app from Google Chrome to Facebook Messenger has been introducing the feature to much praise from their user bases.
A dark mode is useful for an app for a number of reasons. They’re designed to protect a user’s eyes if they’re browsing their phone at night or in dark surroundings. Lighter colors can create quite a bit of glare, so the dark mode switches the usual brightly colored white background to black, dark grey, or sometimes dark blue. The text is then cut into the dark mode using lighter colors. As well as this very functional feature, dark modes also have a pleasing aesthetic and many users choose to use them for this reason alone. People like the way dark modes look.
On top of the two reasons listed above, recent research from Google has also shown that dark modes can actually have a positive effect on battery usage. The research shows that on devices with OLED devices, brighter colors require more battery power than showing darker colors. This means that whenever an app is in dark mode it puts a lot less stress on the device’s battery if the device has an OLED screen.
So, considering all this, it came as no surprise when news broke that WhatsApp was working on a dark mode and that there was a positive response when the first screenshots hit the internet. This now seems to have changed. According to WABetaInfo, the last two versions of the WhatsApp beta for Android (versions 2.19.123 and 2.19.124) have not included a single reference to the dark mode that had been there before.
I don’t know why WhatsApp has abandoned the dark mode for Android.
They removed every reference in the 2.19.123 update, but I wanted to wait another beta to be sure.. and no tracks of it in the 2.19.124 update too..
Maybe they will develop it again using a different approach. https://t.co/BYRQRdSV9R
— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) May 1, 2019
Understandably, users have not been happy by this apparent decision from WhatsApp HQ. It is bad enough when a feature you want isn’t there, but it is much worse when you’re told it is coming and then, out of nowhere, it is taken away again.
I honestly hate whatsapp. I use it because of my contacts. I really wished they all used telegram or something else.
— Angy Ortiz (@Angyortiz89) May 2, 2019
As is always the case with these types of leak, however, there is no official word from WhatsApp on its dark mode position. There is still a chance that the removal of the dark mode code from the beta is relating to a planned redesign or a link to the Android Q system-wide dark mode, which is on the way. For now, though, all we know is that there is no dark mode in the latest WhatsApp beta.
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