Twitter’s ‘Lights Out’ Dark Mode Could Be Coming to Android by Mid-September

With a lot of smartphones now sporting OLED screens and the users generally preferring dark backgrounds, many apps have rolled out dark modes, including Twitter. The micro-blogging service has a type of dark mode available for all of its popular clients, which makes the background a dark shade of blue. There is also a full dark mode for Twitter, called ‘Lights Out', which is currently available for iOS and the desktop web version of the service. Lights Out mode could now be coming to Android as soon as mid-September.

The mode is said to be on track to ship for Android by mid-September, according to a tweet by Dantley Davis, vice president of design and research at Twitter. No other information on the mode is available for now, but it's to be assumed that it's well into its development phase. Lights Out was made available for iOS users in March this year, offering users the option to have a fully black background in the app.

There are a number of advantages to having an all-black background, particularly for smartphones with OLED screens. These screens are able to switch off individual pixels to display true black when needed, and therefore save considerable battery life as pixels displaying black don't need to be powered. If you spend a lot of time using the Twitter app, using ‘Lights Out' will considerably improve battery life. A lot of users also prefer a fully dark mode that is considerably easier on the eyes.

Newer iOS devices, including the iPhone X, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max, all use OLED screens, and benefit from the Lights Out mode. A growing number of Android smartphones also have OLED screens, and would similarly be able to benefit from such a mode. Lights Out is also available on the new desktop web interface for Twitter, which rolled out earlier this month.