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Popular apps like Facebook, Messenger, and Twitter are finally jumping on the dark mode bandwagon. That’s great news for anyone who finds themselves blinded by the glowing white background screen interfaces when scrolling around your phone in the dead of night.
Dark modes are soothing, plus dark themes save battery life on newer iPhone models with OLED displays, (Organic LED) A display technology that offers rich colors, high contrast, deep blacks, wide viewing angle, low power and fast response time for action scenes. Plus, they just look cool.
If you’re an iPhone user and are a fan of dark mode apps, take a look at some of these popular and niche apps with gorgeous dark modes.
1. Twitter
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From breaking news and entertainment to sports, politics, and everyday interests, when it happens in the world, it happens on Twitter first. See all sides of the story. Join the conversation. Watch live streaming events. Twitter is what’s happening in the world and what people are talking about right now.
Twitter was the first major social media network to implement a dark mode across all platforms. Tap on your profile icon at the top and select the Bulb icon to turn on the Night mode. You can also enable a feature that will automatically enable dark mode in the evening (and turn it back off again in the morning).
While it’s not a true black theme, the contrast ratio is still good enough for nighttime reading. Paired with the blue accent color, it’s a treat for the eyes.
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Firefox is a great alternative browser for your iPhone. It’s privacy-focused, fast, and more importantly for this discussion, comes with a stellar dark mode.
Once enabled from the menu, the dark mode will apply to browser UI and websites as well. Every website you visit will feature a dark background and light text. If you’re planning on a late-night research session, open Firefox instead of Safari.
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You might have noticed that Google Maps automatically turns on a dark mode when you’re using the navigation at night. But you can actually make this the default. After starting navigation, go to Settings, and from the Color Scheme section, tap on Night.
4. Apollo for Reddit
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Apollo is a meticulously designed Reddit app. It looks right at home on the iPhone, which is something the official Reddit client just can’t pull off. And you know what goes well with hours of lurking on Reddit? A sweet dark mode. Enable it from settings and get lurking.
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Unread is one of the best RSS readers for the iPhone. It’s minimal, and the clutter-free interface provides a pleasurable reading experience. The free version lets you read up to three articles per day; you can unlock the app by paying $10.
The free Panic theme looks really cool on the iPhone display, but you can unlock more dark themes by upgrading.
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Pocket is the most popular read-later service, and with good reason. The app makes it extremely easy to save an article that you can enjoy later in a stripped-down format. The dark theme will help you catch up on your reading list at night without affecting your eyes.
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Darkroom is an easy-to-use image editing app for the iPhone. It has a simple UI, showing the photo on top and the controls at the bottom.
You can easily switch between the controls and use the sliders to edit the parameters. And while doing all this, you’ll be focused completely on the photo and the editing process, because the entire app’s UI is dark by default.
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Feedly is the RSS service for everyone. Its iPhone app should be good enough for most users. It even comes with a dark mode that you can enable from the sidebar. Feedly’s dark mode is quite simple, but that’s all you need for a pleasant experience.
Screenshot from Appstore
Overcast is one of our favorite podcast players on the iPhone. It’s revered for its simplicity and features like Voice Boost and custom playlists.
Overcast has two themes: Dark and Black. The Dark theme features a gray background, while the Black theme features a true black background that looks great on the newest iPhones.
Screenshot from Appstore
Bear is another worthy note-taking alternative to the Apple Notes app. It works on all Apple platforms and has an intuitive three-column User Screen. The app supports Markdown syntax and you can easily format texts using the formatting bar above the keyboard.
Bear also makes it easy to export written text in PDF, DOCX, and HTML formats. You can enjoy all this note-taking goodness using the Dark Graphite theme, plus more dark options in Bear Pro.
Screenshot from Appstore
If you are not a fan of how the Twitter app works, give Tweetbot a shot. It’s a third-party Twitter client liked by many. While its features are limited when it comes to Direct Messaging and live refreshing, it more than makes up for it with the user experience.
There are no ads, the design is much more pleasing to the eyes, and it’s far easier to follow Twitter threads. Plus, you can turn on the dark mode any time you like by swiping down on the screen with two fingers (just like you’re flicking a switch).
Screenshot from Appstore
Modern email apps compromise on security or features. Canary does not and this is why we love it.
Some of your most important info is shared via email, which is why we build end-to-end encryption into our app. This ensures that only you and the person you're communicating with can read what is sent, and nobody in between, not even your provider.
All of this happens automatically: no need to turn on settings or set up special secret keys to secure your emails. Welcome to a secure, effortless email.
Screenshot from Appstore
Ulysses is a gorgeous Markdown writing app. If you’re the kind of person who appreciates thoughtful design details, you’ll enjoy using Ulysses.
The app gives you an open canvas where you can quickly jot down whatever you like. It can be an article you’re working on, your personal journal, or even notes. The advantage of using an app like Ulysses is that your data isn’t trapped in a particular ecosystem. The files are formatted in the open Markdown format and can be stored in Dropbox or iCloud Drive.
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Explore your world, find a quick fact, or dive down a Wikipedia rabbit hole with the official Wikipedia app for iOS. With more than 40 million articles across nearly 300 languages, your favorite free online encyclopedia is at your fingertips.
If you find yourself spending hours getting lost in thousands of Wikipedia pages, switch over to Wikipedia app. It’s a way better reading experience. The Explore feed will give you a lot of topics to read about, and you can save articles for offline consumption as well.
The best feature though is the night mode. You can choose between a dark gray or a true black mode. The latter is great for reading at night on your phone’s OLED screen.