Reading your phone in bed is ruining your sleep schedule. But if, like me, you do it anyway, learn to do it without feeling like you’re staring into the sun (or annoying your sleeping partner) by enabling “dark mode” on every app that offers it.
App-specific dark modes are different from Night Shift on iOS and Night Mode on Android, which lower brightness and blue light. Dark mode reverses the background and foreground colors, displaying white text on black. While Android also has a dark-colored theme, there isn’t a good-looking way to darken every app’s interface at once. iOS and Android offer an inverted mode, but this throws the entire interface into a nightmarish photo-negative palette.
Thankfully, some of the apps that keep you up at night offer a dark mode that’s pleasant enough to use around the clock. Here’s how to find dark mode on the most popular mobile apps.
From your profile, open settings and select “Turn on night mode.” Twitter posted a demo GIF if you need help.
Tweetbot
From your profile, select the gear icon, then Display. Scroll to the bottom. Under “Theme,” select “Night.”
There’s no full-app night mode, but in the settings menu, select Chats > Chat Wallpaper > Solid Colors and scroll to the bottom for a dark grey background.
Instapaper
Instapaper’s dark mode also lowers the brightness on images. From any article, tap the “Aa” button and select the darkest of the four color options. Or in the settings menu, turn on “Automatic Dark Mode” to switch modes at sunset.
Overcast
In the settings menu, toggle “Dark Theme.”
Google Maps
Dark mode is useful for less-distracted driving too. Navigation mode automatically goes dark at night, but you can force night mode under Navigation Settings > Color scheme.
Threes
Adding night mode to this addictive mobile game is cruel. From the menu, swipe right and select “Night Colors.” You’ll still never sleep, but your game will have a chill nightclub vibe.
There’s still no dark mode for the mobile versions of Gmail, Facebook, or Instagram, but the blog darkmode.me keeps track of new dark mode releases, collects design mockups, and bugs app developers to add the feature.
Enjoy reading in bed with a little less eye strain. Just don’t rely on dark mode to improve your sleep, and don’t abuse it by tweeting at the movie theater.
[“Source-ndtv”]
