How to enable dark theme in ios 10. How to change dock bar color to black without jailbreak on iPhone

Some users have been waiting for a “dark mode” in iOS firmware for quite a long time. With iOS 11, Apple introduces a new Smart Invert feature that replicates the dark mode functionality, although it doesn't quite work well. It builds on iOS's classic invert colors mode, but excludes some images, media, and apps that use dark colors. iOS 11 theme dark, black how to enable on iPhone and iPad? Here's how you can try out the black theme in iOS 11 right now.

What is Dark Mode in iOS 11 theme?

Nowadays, the iOS user interface is bright and shiny and has high contrast white-ish backgrounds in almost all standard apps (Safari, Mail, Messages, etc.) These colorful backgrounds are often distracting, especially when used in dimly lit rooms. As a result, all this brightness often strains the eyes.

Dark mode Inverts font colors on your iPhone or idevice. Your standard iPhone Helvetica font changes to white instead of black. Consequently, white translucent layers are replaced with black translucent layers. Dark mode turns your Mac, iPod, and TV into devices with a look that creates effortless nighttime viewing.

Most importantly, dark mode offers respite and respite for your eyes in low-light environments like restaurants, bars, and even museums—places where you might squint to read something. Plus, we think dark mode looks too damn cool.

iOS 11 dark theme, turn it on

  • Open settings on your iPhone.
  • Over your head in General > Accessibility > Display > Invert Colors and turn on Smart invert. Your eyes should thank you now if you were reading in the dark.

Smart Invert, as its name suggests, is smart enough not to invert some images. For example, the Photos app looks great with a dark theme: the color of the photo itself is not inverted, as was the case with the old invert color feature.

Here's a quick comparison between classic color invert and iOS 11 smart invert:

Classic color inversion mode for iOS on the left compared to iOS 11 Smart Invert which is on the right.

Here are a few other apps that look great in Smart Phone, Calendar, Settings, Notes, etc. mode.

Quick access to Invert colors in iOS 11 theme

For easy access to invert colors when you need it, like bedtime reading, set the Invert Colors for Accessibility setting. Just press the home button three times quickly and it changes its colors on the screen. Turn on this triple-click feature in Settings > General > Accessibility > Shortcut and select Invert Colors (may be labeled Classic Invert Colors) or Smart Invert.

Safari dark mode

Hidden in Safari is a unique dark mode that most people don't even know about! This feature turns your browser into a dark mode for reading almost all articles – the browser, changing the text on the screen from white to black. Quite awesome for night reading!

How to activate Safari Dark Mode

1. Open Safari

2. Tap the Reading Mode icon

1. These are the four lines on the left side of your address in the address bar

3. Click on the “AA” icon to the right of the URL address bar

4. In the “font” drop-down menu, select black background color for the circle

1. Change white background to black

2. Black text changes to light gray

As you can see, photos display normally, but text appears light gray on black. This feature only works in Safari, so it's not a system-wide dark mode. For people who spend a lot of time reading in Safari, this is a great option to use at night or in dark rooms and places.


Even before the release of iOS 11, there were rumors about a new black theme that would be included in the new operating system of iPhone phones and iPad tablets (not to be confused with). But, both at the beta testing stage and after the official release, we did not see a full-fledged dark theme.

We decided to enable this new feature in iPhone with iOS 11 and see what Apple did this time. When smart inversion is turned on, the desktop and lock screen become a tone darker; only the breadcrumbs at the bottom of the screen darken significantly (see image above).

How to Enable Almost Dark Theme in iOS 11

The so-called “dark theme” in iOS 11 is called Smart Inversion, and is enabled in the settings:

  • Launch the Settings – General – Universal Access – Display Adaptation application on the iPhone desktop.


Here we choose:

  • Color inversion – enable Smart inversion. The settings menu turns black, the font of the items turns white, but the color of the icons does not change and remains as in normal mode. Everything is as it should be in a normal black theme.

In addition to dimming, in iOS 11 you can go to Settings - Wallpaper - Select new wallpaper - Snapshots, and turn on black wallpaper for the home screens and lock screen.

How dark is iOS 11 on iPhone?


Immediately after turning on this black theme, we went to the Photos application, we liked the implementation of the interface - the entire design is dark, and the photos are normal, without inversion distortion. It would be like this everywhere.


Next, launch the Phone application; in black mode, the dialing keys look better than in normal mode. I’ll explain why, in normal mode, on an iPhone with a 4.7-inch diagonal, the fonts of the dialing keys look too bold or too black; in smart inversion mode, the font looks better. The button is still the same green. The application also looks ok.


No complaints about the black mode in the application. I liked everything in the App Store too.


The first impression was spoiled after launch, all the contents of web pages are displayed as with the usual standard inversion. Internet content is difficult for the average eye to perceive. Images and videos on YouTube are distorted, displayed in the opposite color scheme, it’s kind of gross.


The same thing happens in applications and games - it’s unclear why they would use inversion there. Above are applications (saves traffic when watching videos) and Sudoku, which have also undergone inversion.

Black keyboard in iOS 11


This is what black keyboards look like in smart inversion mode. While they cannot be turned on in normal non-black mode, it’s a pity, if you want a black keyboard in normal mode, look at Yandex.Keyboard, there is a link to it -.

A surprise was the Messages application, in which, after enabling the dark theme in iOS 11, it turned pink.

Since the black theme is not yet fully functional, I use it when necessary by triple-clicking the Home button. You can configure triple Home here: Settings – General – Universal access – Keyboard shortcuts – Smart inversion.

It turned out to be an incomprehensible mode; a dark theme for the iPhone was made, but not finalized for a user with normal vision. Apparently, Apple again wants to hype up user dissatisfaction.

Well, it looks like the dark mode rumors in iOS 10 have not been confirmed. However, oddly enough, there are still signs in iOS that point to the possibility of switching to dark mode. But there is an easy way to turn some iOS elements into a dark version. For example, you can make the dock bar, folders and widgets in a dark color scheme.

You won't need much time for this. All you need to do is change the wallpaper.

How to make a black dock bar and folders

Black UI elements appear due to a glitch when changing the wallpaper to certain images. Thanks to the WonderHowTo site, we will tell you how to do this.

To get started, go to Weebly on your iPhone. There is a collection of different wallpapers with a height of 1 pixel. For what reason exactly this size causes iOS to crash is unknown. Tap and hold the square of the color you want as your wallpaper, then tap Save Image to save it to your Camera Roll. (If you don't want a simple solid wallpaper color, scroll down for multicolor options.)

Now that you have your image, the only thing left to do is set it as your wallpaper.

Open the Photos app and find your saved wallpaper. The saved photo is displayed as a thin strip. Click the icon in the lower left corner and select Set as wallpaper. Then select Install -> Home screen(You can select Both Screens if you want the same wallpaper on your lock screen and home screen.)

Go back to the home screen and see what happened. Notice that some UI elements are now black or very dark. Now you have a black dock bar, folders, widgets and even close icons (X) - for deleting applications. Unfortunately, the background inside the folders is the same.

A couple of years ago, Apple presented the public with a redesigned concept of what a modern mobile platform should look like. Smooth gradients, flat interface and a lot of white. A lot of white.

This solution made our iPhone and iPad bright and catchy devices. And it's great for everyday use of the devices, most of the time without any problems. Until the user finds himself in the dark and decides to read Twitter or the news. Sometimes you want to hide from a bright display rather than continue using the gadget even with minimal backlighting. And this is a sufficient reason to add a dark theme to iOS 10. Rene Ritchie, editor-in-chief of iMore, made this call to Apple.

Apple's mobile operating system does not have a night theme. Some users use the invert color feature located in the Accessibility settings. It allows you to turn the iOS interface from completely white to completely black. At the same time, it will change green to purple, blue will turn to orange and so on. Every color will be inverted, including photos and pictures on your home screen.


A kind of dark theme is implemented in the iBooks reader, where you can manually or timed set a special mode for reading in the evening. Instead of inverting colors, the app adapts them for reading in low light conditions. The white background becomes black and the black text becomes light grey. In addition, blue and green colors also take on a gray tint, making it easier to view graphs or images without major distortion.


Moreover, the App Store has long had apps that have their own night themes. For example, the popular Fantastical calendar has a separate option in the settings that allows you to switch between light and dark themes. And the popular Tweetbot client does this by simply moving your fingers up or down, changing the light design to dark and vice versa. Unfortunately, not all developers are interested in such functionality.

The beginning of change

In the iOS 9.3 update, Apple added a special Night Shift feature. It allows the iPhone or iPad display to change color temperature during the day from warmer at night to colder during the day. In the settings, you can specify exactly how the color spectrum will change: according to a schedule or by activating a button in the Control Center menu.


The idea is that in the evening and at night you can avoid straining your eyes with cold, blue hues that our brain can mistake for natural light, which will entail a longer process of going to sleep.

This is a great feature and it really works. However, it does not solve the main problem - a radical decrease in display brightness.

Switch to NightKit

When it is dark around, any light source is very straining on the eyes. Even the indicator on the monitor or TV in complete darkness is terribly disturbing. What can we say about the screen of a tablet or smartphone? At such moments, a night theme is needed.


If Apple starts adapting the design of each of its applications for the dark, it could take a lot of time to work out all the details of the interface. But if the company thinks about an entire platform for developers, the conditional “NightKit,” then in the near future each of the iOS applications will be able to use the new feature at the system level, and not as a separate option.

This way, users won't have to search for settings in apps and constantly switch apps one after another. The Night Theme could be enabled through Control Center or from the Settings menu (for example, in the same place as Night Shift) and set global values ​​for any of the applications that use the NightKit platform.

Night racing

Android N, the next version of the operating system from Google, is already developing in this direction. Most likely, this is due to the fact that such a function had to be implemented in the early stages of development of the OS itself, since creating a platform like NightKit is an extremely difficult task.


And the point here is not only to provide developers with tools, but also to explain to them how important it is for the end consumer. However, behind such initiatives and integration, thousands of different little things can be hidden: from differences in the design of the applications themselves, to misunderstandings between designers and their vision of beauty.

In any case, every time I wake up at night and look at the screen of my iPhone to check the time, I have to squint at the unbearably bright display, even with Night Shift turned on. Apple is starting to move in the right direction. This means that we can fully hope to implement a dark theme in the new edition of iOS.

Do you think a dark theme is needed in iOS?