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Work-in-progress Dark Mode discovered in iOS 10 code

Despite being a long-rumored and much-requested feature, Dark Mode for iOS was somewhat surprisingly not announced at Apple’s recent WWDC keynote. However, a hidden interface style has been found in the iOS 10 beta release, showing that Apple is at the very least experimenting with the feature.

Dark Mode is a feature that would essentially invert iOS’ standard look of dark text on a light background, for ease of reading at night or in low light conditions. Just imagine: no more squinting in horror at the incredible whiteness of the display when checking a text with bleary eyes in the middle of the night.

Jailbreak developer Andrew Wilk uncovered the hidden setting while toying with the source code of the iOS 10 beta, promptly tweeting his discovery alongside a series of screenshots.

Though Apple hasn’t officially mentioned Dark Mode for iOS yet, it has just unveiled this exact feature for the Apple TV. Perhaps Apple is waiting to first unveil an iPhone with an AMOLED screen, which would see additional benefits from Dark Mode. Or maybe the feature just isn’t ready yet, and will be rolled out with next year’s iOS 11 instead. Either way, this find means it’s pretty likely we’ll get some kind of Dark Mode before too long.