After almost a week of delay, Google has finally released the Android P Beta 3 or the Developer Preview 4. While the new update doesn’t come with any major change apart from a couple of minor UI modifications, the update does come with the ability to enable dark mode on your device.
Before you get too excited, keep in mind that this is not a complete system-wide dark mode. One might recall that setting a dark wallpaper on your homescreen would change your notification bar, quick settings, along with a couple of more menus to a darker shade. Now, while it was previously dependent on your wallpaper, Android P Beta 3 gives you the option to actually change the device theme from Light to Dark, without changing your wallpaper.
To do enable the Dark Mode on your Android P Beta 3 device, simply follow the steps below:
1. Head over to Settings -> Display -> Device theme.
2. By default, it should be set to “Automatic (based on wallpaper)”. Tap on “Dark” to select Dark mode.
3. And that’s it. Dark Mode should now be enabled on your device running Android P Beta 3.
You can see it in many of areas such as the quick settings bar, the notification area, the power button menu as well as the main app drawer. Even your folder backgrounds will change to the dark grey that Google has gone with here. While it’s not a system-wide dark mode, it’s actually pretty good in the scheme of things and gels in well with the overall Android P aesthetic.
The feature is live across all builds for all Pixel and Pixel 2 devices. However, whether this feature will be available across all other devices that support Android P Beta or not remains to be seen. We’ve had instances where certain Android P features are tied to the Pixel line-up only, but I certainly hope this is not one of them.
