The next Android update may have a handy new battery saving option

Android updates are always code-named in letters and candies. If not candies, then sweet things for sure. The latest update Pie was known only as P during development, with the Pie moniker only being released closer to the release date. All news about the next Android update then will be about Android Q, at least until Google decides to tell us what sweet treat beginning with the letter Q will take the name of the next version of its mobile operating system.

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Android Q could be getting a complete OS dark mode

Android users have been asking for a dark mode since forever and it seems like they might be about to get their wish. Android Police has stumbled onto a report by Googler Lukasz Zyblut on the Chromium bug tracker site that offers good news for anybody who wants their phone a little darker.

In the report, Zyblut says, “Dark mode is an approved Q feature […] The Q team wants to ensure that all preloaded apps support dark mode natively. In order to ship dark mode successfully, we need all UI elements to be ideally themed dark by May 2019.” He also says that the Chrome team should put a setting in the browser that will enable the dark mode and talks about a master setting for the dark mode that will be found under Settings > Display > Dark Mode.

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To back up that exciting Android Q news, the report links to a number of internal Google documents. Understandably, these links can’t be accessed without the proper credentials, but their presence seems to add weight to what the report says.

Accessing the page is currently impossible, however, as Google has since locked the whole thing behind a Google login page. You can’t see it unless you work for Google. Fortunately, however, Android Police published a screenshot of the page, which you can see below.

It definitely makes sense for Google to finally be moving forward with an OS-wide dark mode for Android. As well as the aesthetic value, many people prefer having a darker color scheme, recent research by Google has shown that darker colors actually need less battery power to display on OLED screens. The research showed that the darker the colors being displayed, the smaller the power drain; the lighter the colors, the greater the drain.

Implementing a system-wide dark mode would enable users to get more time using their devices between charges. This would be a coup for the operating system as battery size is still one of the biggest issues that affect people’s choice of mobile. It’d also mean Google could conveniently sidestep the fact that its Material Design overhaul across all its major apps is based around a plain white color scheme.