The first part of this statement is a huge assumption, and essentially unverifiable.
But I do agree with the rest, and hate when people on discussion boards tell others to stop discussing.
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iPhone For those who really want Dark Mode and are currently disappointed
- Thread starter KeanosMagicHat
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But I do agree with the rest, and hate when people on discussion boards tell others to stop discussing.
I really enjoy the dark mode, especially in messages, settings and maps. I understand that on webpages, news articles, and anything that the browser pulls from another source, Apple can't force a "dark mode" on that content. HTML email messages will show as the developer of the email intended, which was based on a white background. Forcing dark mode all the way around would be horrendous most places outside of Apple branded apps. Complaining that they can't do this is useless. Nobody can make it look how you want it to look every time.
i concur with this. probably the cases where it will be most inconsistent is HTML based emails. Apple News articles and maybe websites too, but Reader mode is pretty good with just about any news articles in Safari. All in all it’s up to developers which will of course be a mixed bag. there are already some good examples though, i believe Twitter’s web dark mode respects Apple’s system setting. i like it so far as well
Don't forget about Safari. Dark mode doesn't darken webpages, so you still get glaring bright websites. To rely on every single web developer to darken their webpage is the epitome of stupidity IMO. What's more comical is that the solution is already there, smart invert. Smart invert works pretty darn well with websites. The issue here is that when dark mode is enabled smart invert doesn't invert webpages anymore. I'm crossing my fingers that this is still being worked on, but at least as of the last PB it wasn't working. You have to enable light mode in order for smart invert to darken webpages. Simple solution (because I already anticipate a select few to cry that they don't want darkened webpages) just add a toggle inside Safari. How much programming could it be if this is already mostly implemented?
Alternatively Apple could allow extensions like Dark Reader to work on mobile Safari. I knew there was a reason I love my surface pro! I also agree with you on the News app, it looks seriously janky when a news story is all bright when in dark mode. But I've always disliked the news app, you don't get the same adblocking and tracking protections as in safari and you have stupid behavior like being unable to pinch zoom pictures for example.
Oh and let me also state, before the naysayers jump in, just like webpages to rely on all the app devs to darken their apps doesn't make sense. Look at how few of them respect smart invert, and that's an accessibility feature not just a lifestyle feature. Apple makes many things mandatory for devs, having them respect smart invert and offer a dark version of their app should be mandatory.
Excellent post spinedoc77, thank you. Sums up many of my thoughts nicely too.
Thats exactly what I'm saying since beta 1. Right now, iOS 12 with smart invert do a better job than the current iOS 13 "real" dark mode. Just make a shortcut and disable it for the couple of apps that don't support it and you're good to go. People can say all they want, but the fact is its just stupid to let webpages developers decide if they'll enable it or not. The tehcnology is already there. News and Safari look very good in smart invert but it just look awful in "real" dark mode. Same for not forcing the dark keyboard system wide.
Apple just missed a good opportunity here because as of now, dark mode is just a complete mess and just feel like a cheap jailbreak tweak.
You greatly overestimate the following, in no particular order:
- The number of people who know what the Shortcuts app is
- The number of people who know how to use the Shortcuts app
- The number of people who know how to use Shortcuts but do not know how to use the (currently removed) Automations feature
- The number of apps that can readily support Dark Mode
- The number of websites that can readily support Dark Mode
Points 1-3 are absolutely valid - this forum is mainly populated by tech enthusiasts and the average iPhone user won’t have a clue about Shortcuts.
It is a good tip by SoYoung for the rest of us though.
Point 4 - I think most on here that have commented in support of Dark Mode but are disappointed in the current state of it accept that Apple have enabled a Developer’s kit and will leave it up to individual App Developers to support (or not).
Point 5 - I’d much rather see it forced for Web content and if that displays the odd glitch, fair enough. The tech is there for Apple to do this.
Also when this debate gets heated people (not directed at all at you, jonblatho) often forget that Dark Mode is not the default setting out of the box and is an optional feature that customers will choose to enable if they desire.
When I talk about the shortcut, I'm referring to the accessibility shortcut (3 press of the power button). And yes, I know many people don't know, all I said is for now, smart invert colours is better than dark mode imo.
For developers to support it or not, I'm not really optimist about this. Like another poster said, many still don't support smart invert and its an accessibility feature so technically, it should be prioritized. Another exemple is the dynamic text size for the whole iOS, how many app realy support this? Still today its a fraction of apps who added this feature and its another vital feature imo that devs just totally ignore so its been a while now I'm done to blindly believe devs will support new features and give them the freedom to do so. For what I saw, more you give them freedom, more they'll just do what they want and ignore everything else.
Moving to the other end of the spectrum will alienate developers, forcing them to choose to adapt or leave the platform, while not necessarily please enough customers. For me, I love consistency and want to see a more unified dark mode. But for general public, I don’t know. And, what we see today is Apple giving a degree of freedom to developers, yet Apple still implements random rules to limit app capability.
In short, I am in vertigo.
After the last 2 iOS 13 Betas where Smart Invert was broken (especially DB5/PB4) I’d kinda given up on it, but given SoYoung’s suggestion above I tried it again on DB6/PB5 and it works brilliantly with Apple News as it is the first time that both the menu screens and individual articles are Dark throughout.
There’s one tiny glitch on the Following tab where the Channels and Topics icons are not displayed correctly but other than that it’s perfect!
Exactly what I expected to see from News when Apple talked about a System-Wide Dark Mode.
If only Apple would make this the default when Dark Mode is enabled.
In the meantime I created 3 Shortcuts that I access via Siri or the Widgets.
One entitled Apple News with 3 actions (I have Dark Mode Enabled all the time by default hence the actions selected);
Another entitled Smart Invert with the first 2 actions from above and one entitled Dark Mode;
They can be accessed via Siri, so if I just say, “Apple News” up it comes.
Then after I exit News, I simply say, “Dark Mode” and it reverts to the way I like it for normal operation.
It’s not ideal, but it’s a decent workaround for now.
I’ve sent a Feedback suggestion to Apple that by iOS 13 release they have News working like it is with Smart Invert in this Beta.
There’s one tiny glitch on the Following tab where the Channels and Topics icons are not displayed correctly but other than that it’s perfect!
Exactly what I expected to see from News when Apple talked about a System-Wide Dark Mode.
If only Apple would make this the default when Dark Mode is enabled.
In the meantime I created 3 Shortcuts that I access via Siri or the Widgets.
One entitled Apple News with 3 actions (I have Dark Mode Enabled all the time by default hence the actions selected);
- Set Appearance To Light
- Turn Smart Invert On
- Open News
Another entitled Smart Invert with the first 2 actions from above and one entitled Dark Mode;
- Turn Smart Invert Off
- Set Appearance To Dark
They can be accessed via Siri, so if I just say, “Apple News” up it comes.
Then after I exit News, I simply say, “Dark Mode” and it reverts to the way I like it for normal operation.
It’s not ideal, but it’s a decent workaround for now.
I’ve sent a Feedback suggestion to Apple that by iOS 13 release they have News working like it is with Smart Invert in this Beta.
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Many developers will support it because for most apps it’s incredibly easy to update.
I believe it’s unprecedented, if not flagrantly against standards, for browsers to ignore CSS provided to them in favor of their own. The tech is not there to do it right, so Apple won’t do it.
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There’s a difference between updating for Dark Mode and updating for accessibility features. Updating for Dark Mode is easy for most apps, but implementing accessibility features in existing designs can range from difficult to simply infeasible. Implementing Apple’s accessibility features in even a brand-new design conceived around supporting those features may still take a substantial amount of effort.
That’s Apple’s fault, not developers’.
I think iOS 13 Dark Mode is good but it wouldn’t be needed if they wouldn’t went for the excessively white UI in iOS 7. The current implementation is OK, actually it’s one of the few right moves they did since 2013. It arrived late but soon enough. But I would rather like to see better icons and overall better design of their software.
Developers aren't going to leave the best app market out there in terms of profitability. Certainly there are plenty of things that Apple makes mandatory that devs have to adapt to, I don't see why this is particularly different.
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Is it really that difficult to implement smart invert? Every app I've used with smart invert looks pretty good if it started out light, those are the ones where smart invert has not been implemented. I'm not a dev so I won't pretend to know if it's difficult or not, but in reading through google I see a lot of mention that it's fairly simple to implement: https://blog.thefuntasty.com/smart-...lement-dark-mode-in-your-ios-app-fccb1a4af439
https://duan.ca/2017/12/20/smart-invert-support-for-you-app/
What really gets me are apps that are already dark, but invert to be white when in smart invert. From what I understand it's really simple to avoid having your views invert:
"iOS 11 introduced accessibilityIgnoresInvertColors, a property on UIView. From the offical documentation:
If inverting the colors would have a negative impact on your view’s content, set this property to true to prevent it from inverting its colors. Setting the property to true prevents the system from inverting the colors of the view and all of its subviews."
So far it sounds like the devs fault, not Apple's. Or at least if it's Apple's fault it's because they haven't made it mandatory.
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Yep, 100% agree. Netflix app is a perfect exemple of this. The app is completely white when inverted, same with the Xbox app, but ironically, Google's youtube and youtube music app still conserve their dark theme when invert is on since almost day 1 of the public release of iOS 11.0. So, I think that must be not so complicated to introduce this feature.
It...depends. For an app with a lot of reusable views (like Twitter, for example), you could it’s relatively easy. Let’s take Twitter’s Home view for example…you just need to set UIImageView(...).accessibilityIgnoresInvertColors = true once for the profile picture and, for example, a photo that might appear in the cell.
But each of those image views must be set, in code (as far as I know), to support Smart Invert. You open up the possibility of forgetting to set it for some views that should be set, etc., as layouts get more complex and edge cases arise.
From my personal perspective, I don’t know why that property isn’t set to support Smart Invert for any image views by default (and then a developer may choose to turn it off if, for whatever reason, they need to), instead of requiring occasionally substantial added effort if you would like to adopt it. Easier to beg for forgiveness than permission, and I feel like for most media that appears in UIImageViews, for example, it’s not outrageous to assume that it shouldn’t be inverted.
Personally I don't understand the appeal behind Dark Mode. Maybe I'm overly sensitive to those kind of changes but I find it to be quite depressing. I like my user interfaces to be as light and bright as possible, just makes me happier. Like Seasonal Affective Disorder, but for UIs....
Well my shortcuts workaround above didn’t last long.
With the launch of DB7/PB6 we’re back to square one and that poor, disjointed experience with Apple News.
With the launch of DB7/PB6 we’re back to square one and that poor, disjointed experience with Apple News.
I think its just a bug because smart invert colours is greatly improved on beta 7. Now smart invert is integrated into dark mode and safari will invert colours. But there's minor bugs like the keyboard didn't invert in safari and the news app that dont work at all, but I have good hope for beta 8.
I really hope you’re correct, but I don’t share your optimism.
When iOS 13 is launched, I believe Apple News will have Dark menus with bright white articles, which is far from the experience I’d expected.
Would love to be proven wrong though.
I think it will be like you said as well, but I think at least smart invert will be okay in a couple of beta's and for me its all I ask. With beta 7, smart invert is basically the dark theme with smart invert so we can expect news app will be okay in that mode on public release.
That's awesome, so dark theme in safari doesn't invert webpages but dark theme + smart invert does? I'm ok with that. Now just to deal with all the lazy app devs who don't respect smart invert.