Social media platform Snapchat popularized the concept of disappearing pictures, videos, and messages until practically every other app took the cue and implemented it on their own services. Considering the stiff competition among rival apps, Snapchat took the bold step of launching a $3.99/month subscription service called Snapchat+ last year. Snap said that subscribers would get exclusive access to some new features before the rest of the world gets to see them. We're now learning of a new perk making its way to the Android app, and quite an unusual one — dark mode.

Details about the dark mode being exclusively available to Snapchat+ subscribers were dug up by Alessandro Paluzzi (via 9to5Google), who has been reporting on the course of Snapchat's dark mode implementation for a couple of years now. A screenshot accessed by the leaker shows three dark mode options residing within the App appearance menu — Match System, Always Light, and Always Dark. Paluzzi first talked about Snapchat for Android getting a dark theme in February 2021, so it has been a long time coming.

It will be interesting to see how users will respond when the feature eventually goes live. We don't have an ETA yet, but it seems like Snapchat could roll it out to its paid subscribers imminently. Interestingly, the iPhone version of Snapchat allows users to enable dark mode by heading to the in-app settings and navigating to App Appearance under My Account.

This could be hard to reconcile for loyal Snapchat users on Android, especially as their iPhone counterparts continue to enjoy the feature at no cost. Hopefully, Snapchat is only testing the waters with this leak and isn't really serious about charging Android users for the privilege of using dark mode.

Google switched on system-wide dark mode with Android 10 in 2019, although some apps, including the company's own, were slow to catch on. Thankfully, third-party apps like DarQ ensured that practically anybody could get in on the dark mode train, even if the apps didn't support it then. Dark mode is ubiquitous today, with the best Android phones carrying the ability to automatically switch on the theme after sunset and switch back to the light theme at dawn.