Waze is finally getting a full-fledged dark mode

No more 'partial dark mode' nonsense

Waze is an amazing resource for drivers. While Google Maps serves as your average, general-purpose navigation app, Waze is entirely built around turn-by-turn navigation and it's all about getting you from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time possible. But despite having a massive user base, with the app serving millions every month, there's still an odd omission: the app features no global dark mode (despite having other theming options). It does have a partial dark mode feature which makes the map itself dark, but the rest of the app remains white-themed. Now it looks like Waze will soon be getting a proper dark mode.

The news comes from the Israeli website Geektime.com, which reports that Waze is rolling this out to a very select group of people in an "alpha" version, but it should be making its way to the main version of the app soon enough. It's apparently a special build of Waze 4.78 with dark mode included that's not available to the general public, before you go download a Waze APK and try to dig into it to see if you find it. According to an email reportedly sent to these users, it's in a very early stage of development, and there are lots of bugs. These will hopefully be ironed out before the final release of the feature.

The lack of a full dark mode in Waze was curious considering it's owned by Google, which prides itself in supporting dark mode across its entire ecosystem of services. Google Maps finally rolled out its dark mode earlier this year, so it's no surprise Waze is up next. Having a dark mode is especially important in services like this, as looking back and forth at a bright phone screen while driving at night can be distracting and even dangerous at times.

There's no telling when Waze's dark mode will be ready for prime time, but we'll keep an eye out for more news.

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