If you’ve excited about Nothing Phone (1), we have great news: As promised in the phone’s teaser announcement, you can now download an early version of the device’s software to test and play with.
Well, when we say ‘you’, we mean specifically people with a Samsung Galaxy S21 or Samsung Galaxy S22 phone or Google Pixel 5 or Pixel 6 – this is just an early beta of the user interface with just a few features and tools.
We expect Nothing Phone (1) to land sometime between June and September, but at an event with the silly name The Truth, Nothing teased the device and also promised that it would launch the software soon – yes, ‘soon’ is apparently ‘now ‘.
How’s Nothing Launcher?
How to install Nothing OS
Find the Nothing Launcher (beta) in the Google Play Store (or click here). Download it.
2. Go to the phone’s settings menu, then apps, then default apps and then default apps for home.
3. Select Nothing Launcher and it will be installed automatically.
There are three key features that Nothing Launcher brings to your phone, but we would assume that this does not represent the full feature set because it is a bit limited. They are built on what looks like standard Android.
First, there are three Nothing-themed widgets: weather and two clocks (digital and analog). The digital clock and weather widget have a spotted retro look, while the analog clock is a bit more typical.
Secondly, there’s a new Nothing wallpaper, and it’s … definitely something? We thought our phone was broken when we first saw it, but no, that’s how it should look. You can change the color of it if you want, but this only changes the text color.
Admittedly, these are two rather small features, and the third is, too, but it’s one we actually like. You can choose to enlarge app and folder icons, so instead of taking one place in the start menu grid, there should be four.
This is quite useful for easy access – you can easily slap your thumb on one part of the screen and be sure to hit the app. We also see that this is really useful for accessibility, for seniors or people with physical disabilities who may have difficulty tapping really small icons.
We are happy with this feature and can already see our everyday phone feels a bit restrictive as it does not have icons that can be resized.
Since the app is called Nothing Launcher (beta), we assume this is the first version of the operating system, and hopefully we will see new versions before Nothing Phone (1) launches with major updates. But for a first impression, we are pleasantly surprised.