Forget Google vs. Apple – the real smartphone battle is between those who use their phone on light mode and those who can pretty much only function on dark mode.
Dark mode options have rolled out across most phones over the last few years: you can now get night mode versions of pretty much every app. Except, that is, for WhatsApp, who was dragging its feet when it came to introducing the feature.
Well, not anymore – the update is here. According to a blog post, here's what to expect:
"Dark mode for WhatsApp offers a fresh look on a familiar experience. It’s designed to reduce eye strain in low light environments. And we hope it helps prevent those awkward moments where your phone lights up the room.
"When designing dark mode we spent time researching and experimenting with a focus on two particular areas:
"Readability: When choosing colors, we wanted to minimize eye fatigue and use colors that are closer to the system defaults on iPhone and Android respectively.
"Information Hierarchy: We wanted to help users easily focus their attention on each screen. We did this by using color and other design elements to make sure the most important information stands out."
Get exclusive shortlists, celebrity interviews and the best deals on the products you care about, straight to your inbox.
It does pretty much what it says on the tin: it will allow you to change the colour scheme of the app from light to darker colours.
- Best wearable deals: great fitness gadgets and more
This has a few benefits. It looks nice, obviously, for one. But it's also kinder to your eyes; you can better avoid eye strain from looking at a device all day if you have dark mode on, which is a big thing for many of us who spend a lot of time looking at a screen.
It also saves battery – not by a huge amount, we'll admit, but every little helps when you're trying to preserve your charge.
To get the feature, just open WhatsApp's settings, and go to Chats -> Themes -> Dark mode.
Happy scrolling!
- These are the 10 best iPhone games you need.
