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from the you-don't-know-the-power-of-the-dark-mode dept.
Submitted via IRC for soylent_brown
The Dark Mode craze may do more harm than good – this is why
The hot new topic in terms of smartphone and computer software right now is Dark Mode, an optional system look that flips the colors of an app or operating system to make it, well, dark. Instagram has a dark mode, as does Chrome, WhatsApp, Gmail, and iOS 13, and it seems apps and developers are tripping over themselves to create a new dark mode for their software.
There's just one problem which none of these hard-working people seem to have considered that makes their work redundant, and the attention they've taken from other projects will be in vain: all in all, dark mode looks totally awful.
That's not a dig at any dark mode in particular, and no developers have implemented it particularly poorly (well, apart from Android 10). But in the rush for developers to see if they could implement dark mode on their apps, no-one asked if they should - and taken stock of how it might be reworked better rather than just following the trend.
Beyond that, there are legitimate reasons why developers shouldn't be focusing on Dark Mode. Here's why the Dark Mode craze is just crazy.
So dear soylentils, do you use dark mode on your applications, and why or why not?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @12:41PM (7 children)
I imagine rending nothing, is cheaper than rendering the color white in terms of watts. Not that I care mind you, I stopped using cell phones when they got processors fast enough to become tools of the digital lobotomy product sector.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 26 2019, @12:44PM
That would also apply to laptops, which have batteries.
Use OLED for best dark FX.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by EEMac on Saturday October 26 2019, @01:03PM (2 children)
It depends on the screen technology.
For OLED, you're correct.
For LCDs, the backlight is on and the crystals block/permit light as needed. No power savings. LCDs with dynamic contrast will have very minor power savings.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Saturday October 26 2019, @01:59PM
Years ago, I checked this out on CRTs. For a typical 17" monitor, power usage ranged from 47W to 120W. Depends on the contrast and brightness settings, the resolution, and the image being displayed. At a resolution of 640x480 and low brightness and contrast settings (about 25%) every pixel set to black took 47W, every pixel set to white took 95W. Every step up in resolution increased power usage by 3W if brightness and contrast were low, or by 5W if brightness and contrast were high. The brightness and contrast settings made power usage vary by about 10W.
So, to save a little power, I used dark themes. Forced web pages to display light text on a black background. This backfired a few times, like when I tried to print a web page and the system used my color settings for the print job. Oops. All that energy savings more than taken by the waste of printer ink or toner.
Then LCD monitors began appearing on the market. The 19" LCD I got took 32W no matter what was being displayed. The change of backlight from fluorescent to LED dropped the power usage further, to the low 20s. Power usage went back up as screens got larger.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday October 26 2019, @06:39PM
That, of course, assumes the same brightness setting. I find with light text on dark backgrounds, especially in a well lit room, that I need to turn up the brightness. For a traditional backlit LCD, that means the power usage is going up. For OLED, it's not as clear - there's still less pixels illuminated, but the ones that are lit up are brighter.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday October 26 2019, @02:57PM (2 children)
For years and years there has been Blackle - a black google search. This page details the enormous mega-watt-hours that could be saved by google switching to a blackened interface.
http://www.blackle.com/about/ [blackle.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @10:45PM (1 child)
What you be lookin' for my nigger?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @05:42PM
black is cool or so sayz blackbody radiation ... i guess them nazis missed that.