WhatsApp was reportedly getting a dark mode as suggested by an APK teardown last month, though it wasn"t clear then how the feature"s dark accents looked. Today, however, iOS users may have their first glimpse, albeit in alpha stage, of the dark mode that"s expected to come to WhatsApp for iOS in the future.
Here"s how the dark mode looks in the alpha phase, courtesy of WABetaInfo, though it should be noted that the final appearance of the feature may differ in the final release. It"s also possible that dark mode for both the iOS and Android versions of WhatsApp may look the same when it becomes officially available.
The upcoming feature has been uncovered within the alpha code in the latest version of the app released today, bumping up its version to 2.18.100. It"s worth pointing out, though, that dark mode is not available yet with the newest update. Also, the feature seems to be optional once it finally arrives for everyone so that users will be able to switch back to the white theme, which will remain the default mode.
As can be seen from the screenshot above, the theme has a dark gray color for the background, keyboard, and incoming bubbles. On the other hand, the outgoing bubbles come in a dark green accent.
On top of that, the latest app version also adds improvements to its user interface, which now scales properly on the bigger screen resolution of the iPhone Xs Max. The app also received a redesigned quick bubble actions menu, masking the background with a darker shade once long-pressed to bring up the options arranged vertically (as opposed to the previous horizontal popup menu).
The new design also allows for more options displayed in the first popup, with the old arrow button being replaced with an ellipsis to pull up more actions. The latest version also gets more status reply options including the ability to reply with documents, voice messages, locations, and vCards, with consecutive voice messages now playing in sequence.
In the future, support for videos in the notification extension is expected to officially roll out to WhatsApp for iOS. The newest version of the app is now available to download from the App Store.
Source and image: WABetaInfo