New speculative renders put two rumors together: the alleged iPhone 11 cyclops design and the rumored dark mode in iOS 13. It doesn’t only look good but, if it ends up launching, it’s great news for everyone — including Android users.
Dark mode is a must in modern phones with AMOLED displays: full black pixels on organic displays don’t consume any energy. So whenever there is one on the screen, you are saving battery life. That’s why, if you have an OLED phone, it’s always a good idea to use dark mode whenever possible. This doesn’t happen with LCDs, which have always-on backlight panels.
For Apple, it already made sense to have a dark mode iOS back with the original iPhone X, which has an AMOLED screen. But it will even been more logical next fall, when Apple is supposed to introduce a new all-AMOLED iPhone line.
Samsung already knows the full benefits of dark mode, and its Android Pie-based One UI has been the first OS to support it system wide. However, most popular apps don’t have dark mode yet and some developers, like Whatsapp or Instagram (both owned by Facebook), are dragging their feet. Samsung, while being the number one phone maker in the world, doesn’t have the clout to tip the scales towards the dark world.
That will change if Apple introduces dark mode in iOS 13. Apple’s loyal developers will almost certainly support the format. Couple that with Google’s commitment to dark mode in 2019 — coming with Android Q — and you will have a full universe of dark mode apps by year’s end.