Nothing's next big AI focus could be replacing the entire Google Play Store. The phone-maker on Tuesday launched new features that will let Nothing Phone 3 owners generate new apps, widgets and other settings through prompting an AI, which will then build and ideally run them on the phone.
If the AI creation functions particularly well, you could publish them for others to download.
These features consist of the Nothing Playground -- which lets you generate these new functions -- and Essential Apps where they can be published and downloaded by others. In a demo provided by Nothing's AI lead Sélim Benayat, I watched somebody prompt the AI to generate a "face" for the Glyph Matrix secondary display on the back of the Nothing Phone 3. The instructions clearly stated that the face needed to be made of two circular shapes that resemble eyes, which then bounce around. It's a simple graphic, but it proved that the AI could generate this and then make it available to transfer onto a phone.
You could even remix these creations. For instance, if I wanted those eyes to be in another color, I could theoretically use the Playground to request the same graphic but in my preferred shade.
At launch, Nothing's Essential Apps feature a mix of simple functions like a flight reminder tool, a Flappy Bird-like game and a widget for tracking your hydration. Essential Apps is launching in an alpha state, but Benayat said that the tool can theoretically develop more advanced tools based on the prompts. That said, there is no guarantee that the app-generated feature will run on the phone at this early stage. However, the code generated by Playground is available for anyone with app development skills who wants to continue building an app manually from there.
A Nothing Playground demo in which an app is being created for suggesting what to wear.
Nothing's Playground and Essential Apps are said to be a step toward the company's eventual goal of creating an AI-focused operating system. For now, though, Playground and Essential Apps run on Nothing OS 4, which is based on Android. These features are also currently exclusive to the Nothing Phone 3 series, but the apps may be available on earlier devices depending on the available memory.
This idea is similar to the Rabbit R1, an app-less device for answering questions or completing tasks, such as ordering food, using AI prompts. The device received mixed reviews when launched in 2024, but its performance steadily improved. The R1 received an overhaul to its operating system earlier this month that makes better use of its touchscreen.