Is Dark Mode Technically Better? No, But That's Not The Point

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Since Apple introduced Dark Mode in iOS 13 we’ve had a wave of people arguing that dark mode isn’t better for legibility, it could made reading worse on your eyes, et cetera et cetera. But I think they’re missing the point. I’m sure it’s subjective but staring into a searing white screen is worse than staring into a dark screen at night, and I don’t care how many “experts” pull a “well, ackshually.” Speaking of searing white screens, using as much white space as possible in web design has been popular for the last several years and it’s probably a reason why everyone wanted dark mode in the first place. Some web designers tend to prize aesthetics over readability. I’m looking at you Jony Ive.

So yes, you can have the Wednesday Adams aesthetic on your phone interface too. But at this point, it seems to be just that—about the looks.

PDF Expert 7 Updates With Dark Mode, PencilKit, More

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Readdle updated PDF Expert 7 recently, bringing new features like iOS 13’s Dark Mode. Other features include PencilKit for image annotation, multiple windows for better multitasking, and productivity gestures for iPadOS. From the blog post:

PDF Expert 7 features all the new gestures Apple has included in iPadOS. Be it the one-finger tap and drag gesture to select text, the three-finger pinch out to copy or cut text, three-finger swipe left/right to Undo or Redo, or the three-finger tap to bring up the contextual menu — it’s all here on your iPad with PDF Expert.

App Store: PDF Expert 7 – Free

True Twitter Dark Mode Will Roll Out on iOS Today

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Good news, fellow lovers of dark mode! True Twitter dark mode is rolling out today, called Lights Out.

If you still like the blue-and-gray dark mode better, which is now dubbed Dim, don’t worry because it’s not going anywhere. You’ll still be able to use it in the app, in case you want to use it over the black-and-white one. With Lights Out, Twitter says that the color palette emits no lights on your smartphone since the pixels are turned off, which could potentially help save battery life — along with helping reduce eye strain, naturally.

Evernote Launches Dark Mode for iOS and Mac

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Evernote has launched a new dark mode for its popular note-taking application. Mac and iOS users can now switch between the standard UI (“Light”) and a new, darker Note UI (“Dark Mode”). The idea is to help users in a variety of circumstances, whether they who work late, suffer from migraines or benefit from a darker screen for other accessibility reasons.

Evernote Launches Dark Mode for iOS and Mac

PDFpen 10.2 Adds macOS Mojave Dark Mode Support, More

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Smile released PDFpen 10.2 on Tuesday with support for macOS Mojave Dark Mode. The update for the PDF viewing and editing app also adds 1600% zoom, smoother scrolling, and faster page thumbnail drawing. PDFpen and PDFpen Pro also support iCloud and Dropbox syncing with the iPhone and iPad versions of the apps. PDFpen is priced at US$74.95 and PDFpen Pro, which includes PDF form creation, batch OCR and more, costs $124.95. The 10.2 update is free for version 10 users.

PDFpen 10.2 Adds macOS Mojave Dark Mode Support, More

Get Automatic Dark Mode With NightOwl

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NightOwl is a Mac utility that gives you automatic Dark Mode. Like Night Mode, it automatically turns on Dark Mode either based on sunrise/sunset times, or a schedule that you can pick. It lives in your menu bar so you can access it quickly. I’ve been using it for several days now and I love how handy it is. Hopefully Apple copies it some time in the future, because I’m surprised that Dark Mode isn’t already automatic like Night Mode is. In order to improve the App, NightOwl uses Google Analytics to collect Statistics. The tracked data helps to enhance NightOwl by analyzing how features are used and which bugs appear. They initialize Google Analytics with the setting “anonymizeIp”. This guarantees anonymized data collection by masking the last part of your IP address. You are able to Opt-out of the tracking by unchecking “Send Statistics” in the settings section of NightOwl. NightOwl is free to download, and I encourage people to donate to the developers.

Get Automatic Dark Mode With NightOwl

Firefox 62 Introduces Automatic Dark Mode and More

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The latest update to the browser—Firefox 62—brings automatic Dark Mode on macOS. When you turn on Dark Mode in macOS Mojave, Firefox will now automatically enable its dark theme. The update also sets “the groundwork for future releases that will help people feel safe online.” The company announced last week that the browser would eventually block third-party ad trackers and remove cookies from websites by default. Another component of today’s update are variable fonts. These let you create typography with a single file. For example, if you had the Arial font, there would be a separate file for Arial Bold, Arial Italic, etc. Now it’s included in one file, and websites with a lot of text that switch to this will load with less data than before.