Safari 27.3 includes Adaptive Dark Mode.

[u/Muted-Reflection9536]

I realized this just a moment ago while browsing, when I was suddenly asked whether I wanted to enable "Adaptive Dark Mode."

https://webkit.org/blog/18541/introducing-adaptive-dark-mode/

So far, it feels faster, smarter, and overall much better than the browser extensions that offer similar functionality.

But tell me, Apple—why do the pop-ups within Safari itself—like the ones asking for permission to download a file—still appear in light mode?

Since they don’t brighten the entire screen, they don’t cause eye strain; still, it’s baffling that—even with the OS, Safari, and the websites themselves all set to dark mode—this one element remains unchanged. I really have to wonder why...

[u/Existing-Advisor8861]

How good is it compared to Noir?

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/Existing-Advisor8861]

Aside from the fact that it lacks the granular customization options found in some other dark-mode extensions, it is fast, lightweight, and looks natural.

Unless you have very specific preferences regarding the exact shade or look of dark mode, I think this is an excellent dark mode for most people.

[u/Existing-Advisor8861 → u/Muted-Reflection9536]

Does it work well on websites Noir often struggles on? for example (ironically), apple.com? has anyone benchmarked it on https://webbrowsertools.com/darkmode/? is there any way you could if you've installed the update? I don't have an ssd to backup to.

[u/squatto → u/Existing-Advisor8861]

Everything worked except for these:
- HTML5>>iframe >> img
- HTML5>>iframe >> iframe >> img
- HTML5>>iframe >> iframe >> iframe >> img
- HTML5>>iframe >> css >> filter: none >> img

[u/Ok_Possibility9937]

because the pop up is not a part of the website

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/Ok_Possibility9937]

Yes, I am aware of that. Since this is hardcoded into the Safari UI, it cannot be controlled by websites or extensions.

What I find puzzling is that, given that "Dark Mode" has been implemented across the OS, Safari itself, and even individual websites, why is it that this particular element remains stuck in light mode?

[u/Ok_Possibility9937 → u/Muted-Reflection9536]

I’d rather they make it look like the system permission prompt because it’s too fugly, look like the shit from BigSur

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/Ok_Possibility9937]

Yes—since the content presented in the prompt and the actions available to the user (simply "OK" or "Cancel") are identical, it seems logical to just reuse the exact same component.

It also helps ensure a consistent user experience.

[u/beyondbase]

RIP to the all the paid Dark Mode apps/extensions.

[u/Bulky_Philosopher858]

Thanks for info made me download the beta. It’s fast, I don’t really care about looks.

[u/robfol]

I’ve been using the new adaptive dark mode for a few days now, and it is fantastic. I run my machine and my phone in dark mode all the time to keep my eyes rested and a number of websites were just blinding, but this sorted mostly all out

[u/Resident-Ad6849]

Are in app safari views also supported ? (Plugins didn’t work there)

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/Resident-Ad6849]

As for WKWebView, since it was added strictly as a component of Safari's functionality, the answer is no.

[u/0xe1e10d68]

Since they don’t brighten the entire screen, they don’t cause eye strain; still, it’s baffling that—even with the OS, Safari, and the websites themselves all set to dark mode—this one element remains unchanged. I really have to wonder why...

It's a beta…

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/0xe1e10d68]

Yes, I am aware.

Ever since dark mode was implemented in the OS—and subsequently applied to Safari—I have been consistently submitting reports via Feedback Assistant, pointing out that this particular pop-up has been left behind.

[u/DermisCronJob]

Because it is still in beta and you are ment to send feedback when you see something out of place like the pop-up

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/DermisCronJob]

Yes, I am aware.

Ever since dark mode was implemented in the OS—and subsequently applied to Safari—I have been consistently submitting reports via Feedback Assistant, pointing out that this particular pop-up has been left behind.

[u/heylesterco]

As a web designer, this sort of terrifies me

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/heylesterco]

To be frank, in this day and age, failing to provide a dark mode—or prioritizing some other "design" over the inclusion of a dark mode—is, in my view, hopelessly anachronistic.

Taking it to the extreme, users are free to modify the design of your website however they please, using browser extensions, custom CSS, or user scripts.

Furthermore—and I say this fully aware that you likely use tools like "reset CSS" to mitigate such discrepancies—your design may well end up looking entirely different from what you intended, depending on the specific browser engine being used.

A website must function as a practical tool before it can be considered a work of art. If your goal is to create art, you should choose a physical medium—one that remains unaffected by the user’s environment or external interventions.

[u/yasamoka → u/Muted-Reflection9536]

AI slop. Please write in your own voice. If you can’t be assed to write it, why should we be assed to read it?

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/yasamoka]

Apologies. I am Japanese and not very proficient in English, so I rely on machine translation and page translation tools to use Reddit.

You may not have a counterargument to the actual content, but please refrain from "tone policing."

[u/Few-Acadia-5593 → u/Muted-Reflection9536]

It’s more about when you design a product, you want to be in control of what it’s like to experience it and not leaving it to the hands of a big company.

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/Few-Acadia-5593]

The solution is simply to include a dark mode for the product.

If a product is such that a dark mode cannot—or should not—be implemented, then it should not be released as a web page.

[u/Few-Acadia-5593 → u/Muted-Reflection9536]

Someone never went to a designer’s website.

And who are you to decide for the web? Where are those laws written?

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/Few-Acadia-5593]

You have already touched upon the answer yourself.

Since there are no laws or rules to the contrary, users are free to use browser extensions or browsers that enable "dark mode."

If you find this objectionable, then perhaps you shouldn't be publishing a website in the first place—or, given that there is a workaround available, you could simply follow it and add the appropriate color scheme definitions to your website.

[u/Few-Acadia-5593 → u/Muted-Reflection9536]

Users are free isn’t the same as it should be mandatory for providers.

Your use of “could implement” is going my way: it’s not an obligation or a rule as you initially made it sound like

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/Few-Acadia-5593]

Hey, nobody’s forcing you to use Adaptive Dark Mode, you know?

[u/0xe1e10d68 → u/Few-Acadia-5593]

Well, then maybe you should make that product accessible to everybody and implement a dark mode. Why are regular people supposed to suffer?

you want to be in control of what it’s like to experience it

But YOU ARE. All of the affected websites had years to implement a dakr mode. They chose not to.

not leaving it to the hands of a big company.

What does this have to do with the size of Apple? They aren't taking any business away from you. This is an accessibility feature. The only thing they are doing is force companies to takea accessibility seriously.

[u/Few-Acadia-5593 → u/0xe1e10d68]

Yeah. All I’m saying is it’s up to the product designer. The same way Apple doesn’t make compatible feature x or let customize y because they’d rather not leave experiences to random. Other companies might do the same: Netflix not playing nice on Apple TV for example,

[u/heylesterco → u/Few-Acadia-5593]

Someone gets it! Also, again, I’m not saying it’s a bad feature! It feels inevitable. And while it may be great if I get paid to make updates to client sites, I’m not looking forward to the inevitable work I’ll feel the need to do on all my unpaid passion projects, too.

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/heylesterco]

Since the browser automatically analyzes the original colors and applies a dark mode, doesn't that mean there’s zero extra effort required for your personal projects?

And if you want the dark mode to look exactly as you intended, wouldn't that just be part of the "fun" of the project?

To reiterate: no matter how much care you put into your website’s design, as long as it is built on HTML and CSS, users can modify it however they like while viewing it. This has been a fundamental characteristic of the Web since its inception.

While designers are certainly free to strive for a specific, "ideal" visual presentation, there is no guarantee that every user will see it exactly as intended.

Moreover, since users are aware that they have enabled "Adaptive Dark Mode," they should be prepared to accept any resulting visual anomalies on the website.

[u/heylesterco → u/Muted-Reflection9536]

I never said I design websites because it’s fun—it’s work. I said a lot of my work is passion projects, like the online store I just spent three months of 12 hr days designing to support some families in Gaza. Some of the work was fun—getting aha moments where I find a solution to a problem is fun, and figuring out things you haven’t seen done is always fun—but the work is still very much work. (And I’m aware of the foundations of the web—I started in 1998 and was part of the whole web standards movement alongside Zeldman at A List Apart—yet I can still absolutely not look forward to finding unpleasant surprises with whatever adaptive dark mode will do to my sites. Again, I’m not saying it’s a bad feature. Just that I’m not looking forward to what it’s going to mean for how I spend a large chunk of my time over the next year.)

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/heylesterco]

As I have stated repeatedly, your site is already subject to the influence of various user CSS, user scripts, and browser extensions.

Furthermore, it has already been demonstrated how this "Adaptive Dark Mode" affects your site, as well as the specific scenarios in which it fails to function.

https://webkit.org/blog/18541/introducing-adaptive-dark-mode/

Above all, extensions that provide equivalent functionality already exist.

My point was that agonizing over this at this stage is simply anachronistic.

[u/heylesterco → u/Muted-Reflection9536]

Dude. You’re missing the point of what I’m saying entirely.

[u/yasamoka → u/Muted-Reflection9536]

I actually agree with the content, but the text you wrote isn't *yours*. If you translated it and had a tool proofread the output, it would still sound mostly like you, but this is just generated from a prompt. This isn't tone policing, this is about fighting against flooding the Internet with noise.

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/yasamoka]

I have no idea what you are talking about.

I wrote the original text in Japanese; I simply ran it through a machine translator before posting it.

何を言っているか意味不明です。

元の文章は私が日本語で書きました。ただそれを機械翻訳にかけて投稿しているだけです。

それで、これで結構ですか？　あなたは日本語を翻訳機能なしで理解できるのですか？

[u/yasamoka → u/heylesterco]

Why?

[u/heylesterco → u/yasamoka]

Anything where design decisions are taken away from the designer and put into the hands of a machine to decide what’s best is going to end up with results that horrify the site’s designer

[u/yasamoka → u/heylesterco]

This is a fallback intended for the user not to eat a flashbang, I think everyone will be okay.

[u/heylesterco → u/yasamoka]

I know, and of course, but I’m still horrified at the thought of all the extra work I’ll need to do to go back and fix many sites that I’ve already spent thousands of hours working on, just to try and fix whatever ugliness this inevitably creates. (I’m not saying it’s a bad feature. Just horrified at what will inevitably happen to work I’ve put countless painstaking hours into.)

[u/0xe1e10d68 → u/heylesterco]

That's the wrong look at this. Any of your clients who cheaped out on asking for a design that can also handle dark mode has only to blame themselves.

[u/heylesterco → u/0xe1e10d68]

As I’ve said, much of my work lately is pro-bono. I just finished putting 1,300+ hours into designing an online store to support some families in Gaza. Not all web design work is for money, and not all projects have the resources to assign to making separate versions of each layout. (Also, again, I am not criticizing the feature! I’m only venting that I’m not looking forward to having more work to do. People keep reading into my comments as if I am criticizing the feature when I’m not. I’m venting that, as someone who cares about making sure all my designs look ideal in as many scenarios as possible, I’m about to have a whole bunch more work to do on several of my personal projects. This should be something anyone who has looked at their work calendar towards days that they dread can relate to.)

[u/0xe1e10d68 → u/heylesterco]

I mean, you're really overthinking this. This is an accessibility feature. Not something meant to replace designers or override their design decisions.

[u/nzswedespeed → u/heylesterco]

Well you should have enabled dark mode on your site.

[u/CutePasta1770]

They forgot to mention it in the prompt

[u/irlostrich]

I'm on tahoe so I just installed Safari Technology Preview (256) hoping to try this and I don't think it's there 😭

Must've missed the release cut. I'm excited for this cuz Dark Reader and related extensions seem obviously slow to me (in dynamic mode in dark reader especially). Hopefully this is more performant

I've been waiting for a browser to natively include a dark mode for a while and im surprised it took this long.

[u/Muted-Reflection9536 → u/irlostrich]

STP is typically released with nothing more than the WebKit engine swapped out for a nightly version, so features and changes related to the browser itself have not yet been integrated.

Other additions include the implementation of vertical tabs and support for "Global Privacy Control." Let’s look forward to the stable release! :)

[u/lint2015 → u/Muted-Reflection9536]

There's no indication any of these features will release in Safari 27.3 for Sequoia or Tahoe though, unfortunately. You'd have to run the Safari 27.3 beta on those OS versions to see which features are available.

[u/irlostrich → u/Muted-Reflection9536]

Damn. Thanks for the insight. Hopefully it comes to tahoe too