Need I say more? Every major app (apart from Snapchat -_-) has dark mode, please bring it to Monzo! So much easier on the eyes and saves battery. Doesn’t exactly take much to bring it, especially for iOS, all you need is to add a secondary colour option for white and dark.
Hi, welcome to the forum.
Totally agree with you, I think it’s coming some point soon too.
There’s an existing thread about this with 400+ votes, so be sure to add your vote to that.
This really isn’t true. It takes a lot of work to do it properly.
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It also means that development resource is diverted from doing things that will improve financial related features. Plenty of more important things to be working on than changing the colours in the app.
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Does IOS not have some system for CSS or theming that can be created? I don’t do app development so I honestly don’t know but I know that creating a new theme with CSS is minimal work for small sites if they’re build with some form of convention or standards
Isn’t it? I thought it was as simple as
“toggleDarkModeON = true”
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They could use Microsoft Paint and it wouldn’t take long at all.
It’s called user experience. Just as important as functionally
If they’ve used colour assets in their library then for iOS devices it is literally just as simple as setting the colours that you want dark mode enabled on as ‘Color.primary’ and that will switch between light and dark dependent on the system setting.
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Exactly !
Fellow app developer here. I think you’re oversimplifying the issue here. For a lot of apps, using iOS system UI components, it’s as simple as toggling an option and Apple does it for you, since they control the palette.
Monzo, for a large chunk of the app, don’t, and some of their components that are designed to look and feel similar are actually quite hacky adaptations.
Monzo for the most part would need to build their own palette, and test it rigorously for accessibilty, which often can go overlooked by many developers. It’s an important and time consuming aspect to consider, so you don’t wind up disadvantaging those who are colour blind for example, or have issues with certain levels of contrast. Beyond a moral responsibility, there are legal ones here too. For a lot of indie developers using the frameworks, Apple does all this work for them. Monzo will need to do this for themselves, which is a downside of going beyond native UI frameworks.
None of this of course excuses how long it’s taking them. They could have done this years ago, before iOS even had the option, then very quickly adopted the system level toggles for activation. Monzo are the epitome of slow in the fintech world these days. But I’d rather slow and right than rushed and sloppy.
But yes, you are correct, if you wish to alienate and potentially be sued by some of your disadvantaged users for not catering to their needs, as is Monzo’s responsibility. I think it’s bad practice to oversimplify the issue in this way.
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Wouldn’t the standard theme be an option for those with visual impairments though? Although I suspect there are people with visual impairments that might already struggle with Monzo’s current theme yet I don’t think they’ve been sued, unless we’re saying Monzo’s current theme works for everyone and is some how perfect?
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The app theme choices will be ‘Dark’, ‘Light’ and ‘Use device settings’ - and then a sub-set of choice-of-dark will be ‘Lights out’ (black) and ‘Midnight Sky’ (dark) - it can’t be far off at this point 
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Anyway… All votes and discussion needs to happen in the below main topic - no point diluting it all here where it’s likely to go unnoticed.
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I believe they have been testing dark mode for a few months now. So hopefully it will be rolling out next year in the first few months 
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Whistle, pause, whistle, “Easy now, eeeaaassy”… 
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I mean it works. There are a good number of folks who find light themes very hard on their eyes even on the lowest possible brightness. Depending on the day, I have to wear sunglasses, have the brightness way down, and have night shift turned on for a more comfortable viewing experience else I risk a migraine. Which sucks because I personally prefer white themes, especially outdoors. Night mode outright prevents this for me, so I turn it on in those instances.
Just because no ones taken an accessibility issue that far yet, doesn’t mean there’s no precedent for it. Especially in the US where folks are more willing to sue over issues like this.
Interesting article on this stuff here, as attention and expectations have shifted dramatically in recent years, and applies to app design just as much as it does to the web:
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technically not true for all iPhones
also not true
I guess there are a number of possible reasons Monzo haven’t released an app with dark mode.
- It’s not possible - unlikely.
- It’s incredibly difficult - maybe.
- It’s fairly straightforward, but they haven’t time - could be.
- It’s really easy, but they don’t want to - unlikely.
Take your pick.
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Can I add my own?
- It’s not that difficult to do, more difficult to do properly, and with less staff, it got bumped down a priority list
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