Nothing teases its upcoming phone (1) via the new OS designed to match the start-up's signature branding

Update: The Nothing Launcher has indeed made it onto the Google Play Store, just in time as April 2022 comes to an end. Then again, the app in question is still in beta. Furthermore, it does not consist of an awful lot of content at present: it offers just 1 custom wallpaper (the one alluded to in Carl Pei's earlier keynote), as well as the promised dot-matrix clock and weather widgets.

Apart from that, there is an icon pack to turn all of them into circles (far from unusual, in truth). Then again, an option to max an icon or folder's size out to 3x3, as opposed to the 1x1 default, is also baked in here. The Nothing Launcher is available to download from now, with no more word on its corresponding smartphone as yet.

Carl Pei has now confirmed that his new start-up's phone (1) is on the way. It will run on the appropriately-named Nothing OS, a name that, while technically new, nevertheless has heavy overtones of Pei's origin story at OnePlus in its introduction.

The new skin is thus slated to combine "the best of Android" with the new OEM's "iconic design". It is indeed portrayed thus far as strongly modeled on the dot-matrix that has already become a Nothing staple thus far, the clock and weather widgets made out of the same included.

They are intended to blend in with the interface and animations, as are the other "bespoke fonts, colors and graphical elements" slated to make up the rest of the Nothing OS UI. Pei also notes that the UX should stay "fast and smooth" thanks to "40% fewer" pre-installs (although compared to what was not given); apps that can cache in the phone (1)'s RAM and tight controls on background processes to keep this momentum up.

The executive has also teased Nothing OS with some of its nicer touches, such as the voice-recorder with its analog tape-reel interface (not to mention its little privacy-regarding dialog box). Pei has also now alluded to plans for system sounds inspired by things like "Morse codes, oscillators and digital watches" for a tech-forward experience with just enough "human warmth".

On that note, Nothing already asserts that its OS will stay on the bleeding edge it ostensibly aims for with 3 years of software updates and 4 years of security patch upgrades (presumably starting from the release of the phone (1) to the market).

Nevertheless, Nothing has decided to hold launch info for the same inaugural handset in reserve for now. In the meantime, it has announced that it will offer something of a hands-on preview of its OS via the custom launcher based on it, to be released with compatibility with "select smartphone models" in April 2022.

Nothing ear (1) buds: now on Amazon.