Android P may launch with a native dark theme

Our relentless nagging has worked.

Over the past few months, there have been a handful of indicators suggesting that Android will soon offer native theming support. Android Oreo allows users to customize their phones with the Substratum Theme Engine with the use of a simple desktop app, the Pixel 2 introduced white and dark themes that change based on the wallpaper you have set, and now it looks like Android will soon get a native dark mode.

Last November, one user took to Google's official Issue Tracker asking for a "Dark Mode or Night Theme in Android 9.0." Google responded a day later saying that it'd shared this suggestion with its engineering team, but after that, things went dark.

However, during the wee hours of the morning on February 23, 2018, Google updated the thread once more with the following response:

Our engineering team has added this feature. It will be available in a future Android release.

AKA, a dark/black theme is finally coming to Android 🙌

Google's comment doesn't offer any insight as to when this feature will be launched, meaning it could debut as soon as Android P or it may not. This seems like a fairly small addition considering that Pixel and Nexus devices already offer this with accompanying wallpapers, so we'll be sure to keep an eye out for this during Google I/O in May.

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