9to5Google is reporting that a cool new feature is on the way to Twitter on Android (and likely iOS too). Alpha testers are reporting that a new ‘dark mode’ has been added, which presents the Twitter interface in a new white-on-dark-blue colour scheme.
Like the Flux app for desktop and mobile, this colour scheme is activated automatically once the sun goes down at your location, and the app returns to normal at dawn. There’s no manual toggle for the feature yet, but we’d expect that to be added before it goes live.
A dark mode for Twitter has been a key selling point in many rival Twitter apps, although Twitter’s strict user count limits have constrained the success of third-party apps for some time now. It’s nice to see the feature finally making the jump to the official app, a few months after Google added native support for night modes in apps with the Android Support Library 23.2.
The new version of Twitter also includes some other changes, including a new UI layout that incorporates a hamburger slide-out menu, floating action buttons and overflow buttons. These should make the Twitter app feel more fluid, and hopefully improve usability as well.
The night mode is scheduled to be released alongside the Material Design update to the Twitter app on Android, although it’s not clear when precisely that will be. For the sake of everyone that keeps twittering late into the night, we can hope that the release date isn’t too far off.
What do you make of the proposed changes? Let us know in the comments below. Thanks for checking out the article, and have a good week!