Google's slogan is (was?) "don't be evil" but all of their new MD apps are blindingly white light themes!

Retinas?, no don't need them. Thanks Google.

The „don’t be evil“ line was removed when this alphabet thingy happened I think.

@irene If they gave the option for something other than white I would agree.

@theKarlisK I asked Google that, even with my brightness turned all the way down why they have to use so much white and you know what their reply was? Nothing. No reply. Because Google doesn't care. Only evil designers force bad design choices on their users. And in this case there isn't a choice. It is white, white and more white. I would judge not according to the color of my themes but eye pain and eye strain are real. So much for their old slogan.

@irene not giving the option and forcing bad design choices on users is not justification for not being evil. It's worse than idiotic because they're pretending to know what their users want but again they don't even care. I miss the old Google.

@irene A bad design choices is any choice includinge eye damaging black on white if there is no option for users to change it to preserve their vision.

Too much white is most definitely a bad design choice and Google's new "everything white" is not good at all.

They earned their evil reputation for pulling stuff like this and apologizing for them because it is 'traditional' is not going to take that away. Google is evil. Too much white is also evil. No option for black/dark is evil. It shows lack of consideration for users eyeballs. It would be like if they started enforcing dark/black themes everywhere. You wouldn't like that would you?

@irene Can't agree. As too much blue light is not an opinion but a fact that is damaging to the eyes. White light has blue light in it (again fact, not my opinion). Using a blue light filter and decreasing brightness is an ugly hack for a bad design. I'm not against light / white themes in general but Google's just gone too far with too much white and no other options. If they were good and not evil they might have toned it down or given an option to change it. As it is, I'd have to theme everything using substratum or stylus to regain optimum retinal comfort.

@irene It is a dirty hack and just as you have said eye damaging to lower brightness which causes lower tolerance for bright light. And all screens emit blue light more so if they display blue or white light in greater quantities.

And this is devRant and I can be angry at whoever I wish to be and rant about it. Hell, I've even backed up my anger with my opinion based on facts which is going above and beyond the usual rant. So no need to tell me what I can or cannot do. You can still respect your own preference and disagree with mine.

Google is a huge monopolistic corporation backed by an even huger monopolistic corporation (Alphabet) and can hardly be considered a "strawman." Choices they make have real effects and cannot be easily dismissed.

Everyone has their preferences but forcing your preferences upon others is sure fire way to get, and rightfully so, roasted.

Bow down before your leader.
🔥 Google 🔥
"Everything must be white theme".
"Spare no eyeballs."
-Google, 2018

@irene "better". There is a subjective word if ever I heard. In what way? I mean the numerous blue light studies show physical damage to eyes in the same way UV light is harmful. I don't need a study to tell me what hurts.

The damage it does is something measurable in either subjective pain scales or in actual physical matter of the eye and corresponding drop in visual acuity. In what ways is your (just one?) study saying better and how is that measurable?

@irene Additionally, there may be genetics involved as my family had a history of macular degeneration so eyesight is more sensitive to brightness (can see in dark very well).

@irene in what ways and how was that perception of information measured? Comprehensive ability to parse text? What was the control sample and did the contrast ratios of this sample vs that other sample match? Anyone can make any claim they want but if they're making claims of one being better than another there must be some measurable result that shows and matches their data.

Still data isn't going to make my eyes hurt less.

@irene and if the measurable result is simply "faster" well I can:

-Make a fire burn brighter by burning it's fuel source faster

-Overclock my computer but that wears out the electronics faster

-Charge my phone's battery faster but that wears it out faster too.

Any cost in speed increase is due to some other additional wear and tear being used. Go faster down the road and you use more gas. Too much blue light and the eyes wear out faster.

@squid true. I do like the YouTube dark them. So they're slightly less evil lol. Hope it keeps going that way.

The slogan *was* "don't be evil", they removed that by now.

@theKarlisK Not light theme specifically but too much white, which is too much blue light which studies have found to be actually damaging to the retina. No choice and forcing a theme style is not being good -- it is evil. What we have found over the years to be 'less stressful on the eyes' as you have put it, is actually damaging to the eyes if it is full of blue light. It is actually safer to move towards the yellow side of the spectrum for dark environments rather than slowly cooking your eyeballs.

@theKarlisK And you seem to make several assumptions about how I have my screens configured. I have brightness in check, as well as color profiles and color temperatures. Even so, too much white light is too much blue light === your argument here is simply invalid.

I do hope for your own eyeballs sake that you do not in dark environments have excessive white/blue light causing damage to your eyeballs. Because that's what Google wants us to do! We'll it was pointed out they are starting to have some dark themes and light themes that are not ALL white but recently their new material designs have been on the almost completely white with a little bit of color side. They look OK for the most part with the colors layout and all but too much white is too much white any way you put it.