WhatsApp is caught up between fulfilling the demands of its users and battling privacy concerns after the whole spying row. After several months of constantly demanding a dark theme for the world's largest messaging application, WhatsApp might finally be inching closer to an official rollout.
WhatsApp, which serves more than 1.5 billion users worldwide, has failed to offer dark mode despite many popular apps giving in to the demand. For long, rumours about dark mode on WhatsApp have got users excited, but the feature never left the beta testing phase.
According to the latest WhatsApp beta update, a trace of the much-requested feature was found, giving enough evidence to support the thought that an imminent launch is just around the corner. WABetaInfo, which regularly tracks new features in WhatsApp, spotted a Dark Default Wallpaper in the app.
The reason Dark Default Wallpaper is solid evidence of an official rollout is it might be one of the last things to do, the report noted. Additionally, WhatsApp's dark mode is "almost perfect" on Android and some adjustments, such as icons for double ticks, need to be made.
It also looks like dark mode could first arrive on Android as there's still some work left in the iOS version of the app. "The Dark Theme on iOS needs to be improved for some labels and cells background (some cells are still white). It also seems that WhatsApp did something wrong with Dark Bubbles recently, making the app to crash," WABetaInfo tweeted.
At a time when most of the popular apps, as well as Android and iOS, have enabled dark mode, there's a lot of pressure on WhatsApp to do the same. Through rigorous testing, WhatsApp wants to make sure the new feature doesn't arrive half-baked. In fact, there's no fixed date for the release of dark mode on WhatsApp, but there's enough proof it is going to be sooner than later.
While waiting for dark mode on WhatsApp, we've seen several new features, including group invite system, memoji stickers for iPhone users, option to hide statuses from contacts and more. What is your favourite feature in WhatsApp so far and your thoughts on dark mode?
