One of the neat tricks we found on the Pixel 2 was that our Pixel 2 would shift its notification UI into a dark mode based on having a darker-colored wallpaper.

I’m just gonna keep a dark background on from now on. pic.twitter.com/2I8lsGfRtx

— Jules Wang (@PointJules) May 24, 2018

We were somewhat surprised to see Google make another embrace of a Dark Theme after years of toiling between the requests of fans and whatever its vision of the software platform was. Indeed, Android users were hankering for this little feature to be made a manual option.

As pointed out by Android Police, it looks as though their requests will be followed up. A thread on the Google Issue Tracker concerning a desired “Light Mode/Dark Mode toggle” has been updated by a Google employee after nearly three months of dormancy.

We have added support for a Dark theme to be applied to quick settings and launcher under Settings -> Display -> Device Theme. It will be available in a future Android build.

Further requests for different modes such as a “transparent mode” or a Gmail-specific dark theme have been made since then and have gone unanswered.

The first overtures toward a Dark Theme came with the developer preview process of Android Marshmallow in 2015, only to have died with a greater emphasis on blue light reduction at night. App developers, including Google, have taken the task of making a dark UI for their specific products in lieu of a platform-wide change. In 2018, another crack at a honest-to-goodness Dark Mode would be appreciated.