iOS 13 First Look Screenshots: System-Wide Dark Mode, New Reminders App and More

Apple is only a few days away from WWDC 2019, where it is expected to announce its all new iOS 13. Prior to it, 9to5Mac has gotten its hands on pre-release screenshots of iOS 13, giving us a prior glimpse of what to expect from Apple's upcoming mobile OS. While some would appreciate the largely similar layout and design language that eases any learning curve with the new version, many may find the changes a bit too incremental.

The most notable of the lot is, of course, the system-wide Dark Mode. Instead of the usual Light Gray theme that iOS has reserved for years, Dark Mode brings about a welcome change with an all-black interface. This would help reduce strain on the eye by minimising incident blue light. Furthermore, given that Apple is gradually shifting to phones with OLED displays, the Dark Mode should also help the batteries on Apple consume lesser power, since OLED crystals do not need power to process the black pixels.

The Dark Mode in question will be rolled out to all native apps, and be also opened up to iOS app developers to integrate the interface design language into their own apps. The screenshots show the Apple Music app using the all-dark mode, which actually looks far better than the light theme that was previously in place.

Other changes, as seen in the screenshots, include a new Reminders app that now gets a sidebar to sort reminders, search through them and even scroll through all reminders ever set, in a list. The font of the app has also been updated to use a new 'SF UI Rounded', which was introduced in iOS 12. Also updated is the screenshots feature, which now shows a blurred wallpaper background, as well as a more well-equipped utility panel underneath the screenshot. 9to5Mac reports that on iPads, the utility panel can also be moved around as per convenience.

Lastly, the Find My Friends and Find My iPhone apps are being merged, as stated before. 9to5Mac's screenshots show that the new app is simply called 'Find My', but it is not sure if this might be an alpha/beta working title, before the final version is released in iOS 13. We are pretty sure that iOS 13 would also fit in some more optimisations, features and refinements, all of which should be clear on Monday, June 3.