With Whatsapp closing its doors to Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile in January, it's somewhat ironic to see it now get 'dark mode' finally, on iOS and Android, matching what we had on Windows Phone five years ago. See the statement from Whatsapp below, plus I can verify that it's now hit all my devices.

From Whatsapp:

Dark mode for WhatsApp offers a fresh look on a familiar experience. It’s designed to reduce eye strain in low light environments. And we hope it helps prevent those awkward moments where your phone lights up the room.

When designing dark mode we spent time researching and experimenting with a focus on two particular areas:

• Readability: When choosing colors, we wanted to minimize eye fatigue and use colors that are closer to the system defaults on iPhone and Android respectively.
• Information Hierarchy: We wanted to help users easily focus their attention on each screen. We did this by using color and other design elements to make sure the most important information stands out.

Users on Android 10 and iOS 13 can use dark mode by enabling it in system settings. Users on Android 9 and below can go into WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Theme > select ‘Dark’.

Yet another example of how far ahead of its time Windows Phone was around 2011, almost a decade ago, with its system wide dark mode that was respected by most third party applications. iOS and Android are just now starting to catch up, arguably.

There's no Whatsapp anymore on Windows, of course, but you can use Telegram instead if your friends and family are amenable - see the Telegram section of my Status article for links.