Is Essential Apps (Alpha) good ?

For the last month or so I have had early access to Essential Apps and I have used it to create a few custom widgets.

I am one of those people who is not entirely on the AI bandwagon, I think it suffers from several ethical concerns and I think it's vastly overhyped. I am more irritated by AI in the Artistic and Video realm as it's contributing to digital pollution. (They call it brain rot slop these days)

Still essential apps is at the very least more productive than that.

So I put essential apps to the test, how good is it ? Keep in mind, it is currently in Alpha.

Long story short it's good, but it cannot function without a talented human behind it (duh). I think a highly skilled developer will end up making some crazy work with this program, simply because that dev has the programming skills for it. On it's own, it can create only basic and generic looking widgets.

Personal Software

Instead of banking on the AI, in my opinion Nothing has essentially opened the door for any community member to program a functional widget for their devices. Which is actually kinda crazy.

The promise of personalized software is great, but it requires a good bit of time investment.

My Process

I started by prompting the AI a general idea and seeing how it created it. I would ask the AI to label the code so that I can make changes. Then I would make changes on the code. I ended up involuntarily learning a good bit of react (programming language), which I don't mind. Knowledge is always good.

Here are the 4 widgets I have made, if you are on NOS 4.0 beta you can check them out by directly adding them to your devices.

To do that - CLICK HERE

Counter (w/Themes)

I built a simple counter widget with themes inspired by physical and digital products like NOS and Essential Space. Tap the top right corner to change the theme, see if you can guess where each theme is inspired from. All themes were handcrafted based on an initial design I made.

Sticky Note

Currently my most popular widget on playground. Take a quick note, limited to 70 characters. Perfect for priority items and reminders. Swipe up to reset.

Color Palette

This was made entirely by AI, so I cannot take too much credit here. It shows 4 colors randomly generated by color theory algorithms. Tap on it to keep on generating. As a designer this widget helps me try some experimental color combos and it leads to some cool results.

Morning to Night Clock.

I think this is the first one I made. It's pretty simple. The color of the clock changes based on what time it is. The color changes thrice in a day. There is a progress bar and it shows the milliseconds!

The Psychology of Building Something With AI

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, building something with AI doesn't give your soul the same satisfaction of building something from scratch, failing multiple times along the way and then figuring it out on your own feels much more meaningful.

Perhaps I'll write a full essay on this on one of my personal websites, but I'll leave you with a question.

What's more important ? The journey or the destination ? AI promises to get you directly to the destination. But spending time on the journey builds your Character and your personality. Fighting mental adversity while learning something is crucial for personal growth.

Elsewhere

I recently shared my proposal for CMF OS 1.0 - Check it out - Click here

If you wish to see everything I have made for Nothing - Click Here

If you wish to see everything I do online - pay a visit to Rahil's Office

Much Love!

Thanks - Rahil