After the better part of a decade heel dragging, the BBC Sport app now finally has a dedicated dark mode on Android devices.
For years, when using the BBC’s application to check sporting scores, read news, and more, no matter whether your phone was set to dark mode, it would object. Instead, it shows an eye-searing white background regardless of your device preferences.
You could enforce a dark mode when using the BBC Sport app on several devices by using features like the “Expanded” dark theme on Pixel phones or similar options on other devices, such as Samsung Galaxy phones. However, this caused text and visual errors, as not all areas of the application changed enough to work correctly with this method.
What’s new
Dark mode has arrived.
By popular demand and after a lot of work by a number of teams, BBC Sport now supports dark mode. For the first time, the app will automatically reflect your device’s system theme – switching seamlessly between light and dark depending on your settings.
An update began rolling out on January 29, but the latest update, dated February 2, has seemingly brought this change to the masses. So, yes, the good news is that one of the longest-standing “large” hold-outs on Android is now fully compliant with your device theming preferences. While user numbers are hard to come by, the BBC Sport app has been downloaded over 5 million times on the Play Store alone. Which is no small feat.
The main thing here is that while it is very long overdue, it works. You might also notice that there is no toggle to enable this within the app. Everything is handled by your phone, so if you use a light theme during the day, the BBC Sport app will appear as always, dark mode when your phone is switched over manually – or via a schedule.
Just why it took so long for one of the world’s biggest media organisations to add this practically essential option remains unclear. That said, it’s available now, so make sure to update via the Google Play Store.
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