Like some 90s hacker wannabe, I love staring at dark screens. It’s easier on the eyes and generally feels more bad ass. Now, thanks to a long overdue Mac app update, I can read Twitter in dark mode. Now, I want everything in dark mode.
The Twitter app update is actually better described as a total overhaul. It’s about much more than some lovely design tweaks. Features that have been available for ages in the browser—things like animated GIFs, video playback, muting, embedded or “quoted” tweets, as well as group DMs—make the app more fun to use. But damn that dark mode option is beautiful. Why don’t all apps do this?
A lot of them do, actually. Spotify is the obvious dark horse of app design, and there are countless dark themes for Chrome. What Mac users are still missing, though, is a full fledged dark mode that washes away all those glaring, headache-inducing white spaces. Apple was reportedly going to include a full-fledged dark mode for OS X as long ago as 2009, but it never totally materialized. With Yosemite, you could switch to dark menu bars which is cool enough, I guess. Still, the screen’s too bright for these tired eyes.
Is it possible to hack it with a themes app? Sure. Flavours is a popular one, though it does not yet work with OS X El Capitan. But I tried some bootleg program years ago and totally screwed up my laptop, so I’m waiting for the official Apple-branded dark mode like a big doofus. Like a fine wine, I hope dark mode will only get better with age.
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