What's with the All White, Google?

[min_dynasty]

I just updated my Contacts and Phone apps and hate it! Why is Google doing the exact opposite of what fans want and making everything white? We ask for a dark theme and they proceed to go whiter.

What are your thoughts? Do you like the whiter (cleaner) look or despise it like I do?

 

[Eggmundo]

I hate the all white. It's so bad for the eyes. Also Pie's new dark mode is pathetic. It only changes the app drawer and pull down settings. Why can't they at least make the notification cards dark too?!

 

[KPMcClave]

Why I haven't updated to Pie. I don't want to lose the rootless Substratum that allows me to blacken almost everything (including the new Contacts and Phone apps) with overlays.

They removed this functionality in Pie, and while I would be OK if they were repolacing it with their own version, or even a pay service for truly dark themes, their half-assed dark splashes and mostly white backgrounds don't cut it anymore.

 

[min_dynasty]

Agreed. Dark theme is terrible. Maybe we need to start asking for a full-on BLACK theme.

 

[min_dynasty]

And I assume the white light can't be a positive for battery life...

 

[Nauga]

I just updated my Contacts and Phone apps and hate it! Why is Google doing the exact opposite of what fans want and making everything white? We ask for a dark theme and they proceed to go whiter.

That's Material Design for you! They started off with the metaphor of hard copy layouts on a white page as their basic design principle, and they just will not let it go, nevermind that a paperwhite background is mostly overkill on a full-color, lit-up digital display. In the case of the Phone pages, though, it's not so much the white that bothers me (since it was already there) as the missing horizontal rules between items. Oh, and the pastel icons are mighty fugly, too: I don't think any color background can save those.

 

[cbreze]

That bright white is way too bright. And really bad to use in a dark room. I wish they’d go to a dark theme that was dark gray and not fully black or at least give us the option to shade it To our personal preference

 

[DarkNeo]

I assume they are making everything white to make it easier to convert to the dark theme when it's ready. Basically everything that is white now will be dark gray.

 

[Ry]

I just updated my Contacts and Phone apps and hate it! Why is Google doing the exact opposite of what fans want and making everything white? We ask for a dark theme and they proceed to go whiter.

What are your thoughts? Do you like the whiter (cleaner) look or despise it like I do?

whoa whoa.. There are people that are "fans" that like (or don't mind) the white look.

 

[TwitchyPuppy]

Nothing a patch/update can’t fix

 

[SupraLB]

I've been saying this since I purchased the Pixel 2. I hate that every app is blinding white, terrible for the eyes.
I use a 3rd party app for everything except phone app and camera app, ,to get away from the white only apps. And I use Nova launcher and quick side launchers.

At this point, there is really no reason to buy a Google phone again. I have to replace all their crappy apps, from the messages, the calendar, email, task app, even the dumb weather app. Even the phone app sucks and looks like it was designed 10 years ago.

 

[nileshdd]

My issue with substratum was that updating apps constantly caused them to crash. I did turn off auto update and tried to get the theme updated first but it was a pain to connect the phone to USB every other day.

Unless I was doing something very wrong, I gave up on substratum.

 

[nileshdd]

I assume they are making everything white to make it easier to convert to the dark theme when it's ready. Basically everything that is white now will be dark gray.

Exactly my thoughts.

 

[KPMcClave]

My issue with substratum was that updating apps constantly caused them to crash. I did turn off auto update and tried to get the theme updated first but it was a pain to connect the phone to USB every other day.

Unless I was doing something very wrong, I gave up on substratum.

You probably weren't doing anything wrong. Any new app update generally requires a re-application of the overlay for that app. Sometimes you can get away with not doing it, but often it will either cause a FC or the app will revert to white until a reboot.

Update to Google Calendar, re-apply the Substratum overlay for google calendar, reboot.

I agree it's more jumping through hoops than I'd like. The thought of not having to do that for full theme updates and updates of individual apps is certainly appealing. As is not having to connect via ADB to re-activate Substratum after every reboot.

The busy work is worth it for the payoff for me, though. I'd prefer to flip a toggle and have a full system-wide dark theme, but if I can't have that the end result I get with Substratum is worth some extra annoyances.

 

[KPMcClave]

...oh, and if you're rooted, not only can you continue to use Substratum with Pie you also don't have to connect to the computer to re-activate Substratum after a reboot.

Wish I had the unlocked Google variant P2XL.

 

[sixty_four]

I just updated my Contacts and Phone apps and hate it! Why is Google doing the exact opposite of what fans want and making everything white? We ask for a dark theme and they proceed to go whiter.

What are your thoughts? Do you like the whiter (cleaner) look or despise it like I do?

I don't mind the white theme of the stock Phone and Contacts app. I do prefer dark themes so I force it via system settings. The one thing that does bug me is folder notification dots are dark gray or black. This makes these dots impossible to see with a dark wallpaper.

 

[DarkNeo]

New update to the messaging app has the dark theme.

 

[Eggmundo]

I have got the new Contacts update, looks very nice. Is there also a new Phone and Messages update? If so when will I get those?

 

[CincyGuy]

Samsung theme store allows you to download themes that change even system menus. Just mentioning it if it really is bugging someone and they think the new Pixel is going to suck anyway. Here are my menus on my S9 with a theme installed.



And since I use Nova launcher my S9 looks just like any other phone would...

 

[KPMcClave]

Samsung theme store allows you to download themes that change even system menus. Just mentioning it if it really is bugging someone and they think the new Pixel is going to suck anyway. Here are my menus on my S9 with a theme installed.

The issue with Samsung themes is that they don't change the actual notifications in the notification shade. They're better than the limited Pixel dark mode option, but that notifications omission is a big one.