Facebook’s Dark Mode is being tested

Earlier this year, Facebook rolled out a darkened user interface in Messenger while promising to eventually bring Dark Mode to its main app. Thankfully, computer science student Jane Manchun Wong has been able to unearth a screenshot showing off the upcoming feature.

Similar to her prior discoveries, she was able to spot a darkened user interface in a beta version of the mobile Facebook app for Android. According to her blog post:

I came across this unreleased Dark Mode in Facebook’s mobile app for Android by looking into the code underneath, which indicates Facebook has recently started implementing the long-awaited Dark Mode into their mobile app.

Currently, Dark Mode in Facebook’s app is half-finished and clearly needs more work

This Dark Mode appears to be in an early stage of development, understandably. For now, only certain parts of the app has been reworked to support the Dark Mode. For example, dark text displaying on a dark background, vice versa.

Facebook’s public beta testing program is limited to Android devices — that’s why the vast majority of Jane’s discoveries were made by sifting through the Android beta version — but you can bet that Dark Mode is coming to the iPhone edition of the mobile Facebook app, too!

Dark Mode for Facebook videos

I think it’s safe to say that Dark Mode on Facebook almost certainly won’t be ready for prime time before the fall. Were I to speculate, I’d say that Facebook will release this feature after the iOS 13 update drops because iOS 13 includes a system-wide Dark Mode and an appropriate API for developers to create darkened user interfaces in their apps.

The social networking behemoth has said that it will be bringing Dark Mode not only to the mobile app, but also to the web interface so there’s that.

Are you looking forward to using Facebook’s Dark Mode when it launches?

Let us know by leaving a comment down below.