Nothing OS 4.0 - Extra Minimal, and Here's My Take.

Thanish Thahir

Wassup Community,

Been running the new OS 4.0 stable build for a while now, and honestly, this feels like the moment Everything comes together. The whole system feels refined to the core - smoother animations, faster responses, and zero rough edges.

Nothing really locked in the polish this time.

Here’s the full breakdown 👇

🤖 AI Usage Dashboard

Essential Space now shows exactly how much of the large-model AI your phone is using. It’s simple, clear, and actually useful if you care about what’s happening behind the scenes.

Settings → Intelligence toolkit → AI usage

🙈 App Hiding, Done Right

You can now hide apps directly from the home screen or the app drawer. No extra menus, no workarounds.

All hidden apps sit under: App drawer → Hidden icons.

🔍 Scoped Search in App Drawer

Search got smarter. You can now control what the app drawer searches through - apps only, contacts, settings, or all.

Makes searching way less cluttered.

📏 Expanded Widget Sizes

Weather, Pedometer, and Screen Time widgets now have more size options. Good for cleaner setups and tighter layouts.

🟩 2×2 Quick Settings Tiles

Most Quick Settings tiles now support 2×2 format. Helps you stack essentials without scrolling through the whole shade.

🟢 Pop-up View Upgrade

Pop-up view now supports two floating icons. Switching between apps feels instant - especially handy for messages, notes, music, and tools.

⚡️ System-Level App Optimisation

Apps open faster. Animations respond quicker. The system preps your frequently used apps in a smarter way.

Settings → Apps → App optimisation

🎡 Playground (Alpha)

A new corner of Nothing OS for community-built experiences: Essential Apps, Glyph Toys, Camera Presets, EQ Profiles and more.

This is where the fun starts.

🧪 Essential Apps (Alpha)

Mini utilities powered by AI and created by the community itself. Light, helpful, and surprisingly polished for an Alpha rollout.

🎨 Visual Refresh Across the System

New Nothing app icons

Cleaner status bar icons

Lock screen password blur

Two new clock faces

Stronger Extra Dark Mode

Smoother transitions

Everything feels tighter and more consistent.

GLYPH INTERFACE

🔄 Flip to Glyph - Smarter Logic

Always-On Glyph Toys no longer appear on their own. They now trigger when you flip your phone - predictable and intentional.

Plus, you pick whether flipping puts the phone on Silent or Vibrate. Your call.

⚡️ Charging Shake Gesture

One of my favourites.

In Flip to Glyph, while plugged in, give your phone a small shake - you get an instant charging status readout. Quick and clean.

⏳ Glyph Progress is Back

Now using Android 16’s Live Update system. So as more apps support Live Updates, you’ll start seeing progress bars lighting up on the Glyphs more frequently.

Settings → Glyph Interface → Glyph Progress

⏱ Glyph Timer Returns

New animation, smoother countdown, easier controls.

Add as a Quick Settings tile or through the Glyph settings directly.

🌙 Moon Phase Toy

Shows exactly how the moon looks tonight. Simple, visual, and honestly just cool to check.

🧩 Shortcut to Community Toys

Inside Manage Glyph Toys, you now get a direct shortcut into Playground’s Toy collection.

New toys = always fresh vibes.

📸 Glyph Mirror Upgrade

It now saves a matrix-styled photo along with the mirror preview.

Feels very Nothing.

👖 Pocket Mode Fix

Pocket Mode now shuts the Glyph Interface off entirely. No accidental glowing through your jeans. Good call.

And My Take After Using It,

I’ve been on Nothing OS 4.0 stable for a while now, and here’s the truth: this update feels done right.

Everything is tighter. Animations don’t wobble, apps open quicker, and the whole system finally feels like it’s running at the speed the hardware deserves.

It’s the most refined version of Nothing OS so far - not loud, not trying to show off. Just clean, smooth, and built with intention. If you’re updating, you’ll feel the difference immediately.

If you’re new to Nothing OS, this is the version that makes the experience click.

More polished. More consistent. More… Nothing.

Until Next Time,
peace out!

JakubL

Thanish Thahir

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Have you noticed any updates regarding camera app/photo quality/shutter speed?

Srivatsan-N

Thanish Thahir looks same as the beta. What does the alpha builds are doing inside the stable?

ArnoldMelvinXavier

Thanish Thahir cannot even hide the ugly search bar from the app dror. do you call it refinement?. Also the long requested basic feature of including volume slider below brightness slider in the notification shade and quick settings pull down still not included. I mean LG had this since 2013. And almost all other OEMs has it. Ability to download and use community build fingerprint animations could have been fun but no.

NeoSamurai

Thanish Thahir Finally, do the live updates work for music played on Spotify or so ?

JochieSantiago

Not to be disrespectful,but why would you make this review if the stable version is the exact same thing as the beta builds? The only thing that changed is the status bar icons.

yogs_00

JochieSantiago lol true 😂 plus i wouldn’t pay like 125 dollars to use the essential space/memory, that’s a lot of money.

SameerParvatikar

JochieSantiago what in the world..it’s ok man

Enthusiast

I’m a new user… feels like a good path taken by team, os was already good for a casual user like me, what I wanted was some refinements and maybe useful features… most companies bring in features for hyped, peeps might use it for a while and won’t be using again… all we basically need is a red and green button right? (like elders say…)… Just a refinements, it’s interesting… let’s see what else is on the way, as long as the stable version is stable fr, I’m ok

AbiS_MjZL72iTVk

Enthusiast I was in the same mentality as you at the beginning, but guess what , as you are new , everything seems to be good . You will see the true colors as the time progress .As new phones get released , you will be left behind like you never existed , they will limit their new features to their latest launches , saying that your device is not capable for the feature , just like the essential space is not being given for the sake of not having an extra button , these are just tip of the iceberg…

Enthusiast

AbiS_MjZL72iTVk Well, it’s pretty obvious… it happens in most companies. If everyone is getting everything then what’s the point with new phone? Even pixel limits, but slowly. Essential Space doesn’t seem essential anyways, maybe in future. As long as they don’t ruin the software it’s okay in my eye. I took it for the software and unique design. That’s the core of it. Currently only thing that was ruining the experience was less haptics, now they says that they have added more… Let’s see, I ain’t optimistic. Just want everything to stay balanced. 🙂‍↔️

AdnanShaikh_SpTGamfi1C

AbiS_MjZL72iTVk that’s true it hurts actually! I own First Flagship the nothing (2). But still they do not respect that to provide features and updates to the flagships atleast.

JochieSantiago

Enthusiast there are still features that NOS is still missing that other android phones have had for years. And even some bugs are still not fixed.

code913

Enthusiast it happens in most companies

Nothing was created to not be like most companies and make tech fun again. I guess fun has an expiry date if the final update for phone 2 still didn’t add essential space

Enthusiast Having rich features, majority being unused and being a weight to the phone…

You can remove essential using two adb commands. And they don’t have a built in way to change what the essential key does so it’s more useless/annoying than older devices which didn’t have it.

Enthusiast

JochieSantiago alright then list them out, just so that I can know. Maybe I was living under a rock

JochieSantiago

Enthusiast well you can read them yourself.they are all over the community posts. I still have the screen flicker in extra dark mode while YouTube mini player is running 🤷🏻

Enthusiast

JochieSantiago Well what i intended by that is… see, idk if many of these features are actually used by a majority 😐. Some want it obviously in the community. However it was clear from the beginning itself, the company is not focused on features, yes you can call out that they’re ruining everything in the name of minimalism. But what about the people who actually came for minimalistic experience? Having rich features, majority being unused and being a weight to the phone… however i don’t think they’ll stay forever with their stance on minimalism, as they already break their stance on clean software experience by that shite screen. NOS isn’t behind, they’re indeed giving you latest Android with latest security patch. OS is simply an aesthetic skin worn to aosp, and it was well known from the beginning itself and there’s a niche audience who wants such an experience. So, they’re just doing what they said. The so called “Minimalism”. Others bring in features with new updates, which would later become less used by many…Feature turned to gimmick… while these guys… they turned a gimmick like glyph light into something useful… (i use it everyday, just my learning partner)… Just like Glyph Light, only time will tell us if Matrix was really a gimmick or something that was bold(less likely, but still…as community is making it fun now, I loved that pokemon game tbh) … I have no complaint other than haptics, camera shutter as well. Just want to see improvement and consistency to the computational photography.

Screen flickr…? Idk bro… guess i should check it as well…mine’s a 3a, so far haven’t noticed much issues, beta is bit laggy… they really messed up with np3 ngl… Would love to see them accept it than defending it.

JochieSantiago

Enthusiast minimalism is not the same a featureless.

Minimalism in Nothings terms is a minimal design and UI.

We can’t even rename pictures in the gallery app 👀

No sound volume manager for different apps

Extra dark mode still not being extra dark

Just some icons and status bar changes.

AI dashboard

At this point, I’m just hoping my NP3 lasts at least more than 6 hours of SoT and the hotspot does not burn my phone

Enthusiast

JochieSantiago well you know it indeed and I’ve mentioned that too, it’s just a skin on aosp/stock. The best they could do is implement stuffs like Google do, like it looks minimal, but more you dig, more you find. And Google didn’t made this in one stretch it’s a process that started from their nexus stuffs, maybe before that… idk. NTL is bringing their own stuffs into table, than borrowing… which is interesting to watch.

Gallery renaming? See, this is the first time I ever looked for that option… i Never knew that someone wanted that, tbh. I don’t Google Photos have it nor their Gallery app (in my blank memory), editing metadata like time, date are available tho. But hey that’s in photos app, which is cloud based, which is totally different from native gallery app…

Volume Manager should have been long implemented, i haven’t noticed it much. Maybe they just want people keep adjusting their volume to show off their glyphs and be an indirect promotion i guess.

Extra dark mode, yep it’s needed. Maybe it’s because that was removed in the previous Android completely, it might take much more time as I believe NOS skin is like a 3 piece cloth as it’s only there in some while some parts are just stock. Would be cool to have it back.

ICONS! As expected, that’s what they live for , pure skin based update.

AI dashboard, idky it exists… maybe I’ll get it later

6hrs sot? Seriously? I’m getting almost 7-8 with 80% battery, that too in beta 💀… Temperature is problem while charging. As I don’t game , can’t say much about that

JochieSantiago

Enthusiast see, that’s the thing. Most of the stuff people do are either with Google apps or third party apps.

And for the photo renaming thing, it would be nice if the native gallery apps has it (although the gallery app is basic AF ) so Google photos is the one I mostly use on my NP3 and Xiaomi 15T Pro.

And yes, in 3.5, 4 beta and 4 official, the battery life sucks. And I cant even use hotspot for more than 30 minutes.

There are a lot of things they could have improved but didn’t. They posted a thread about Major Updates, but this update doesn’t feel “major” when it is only 3Gb.

It’s honestly disappointing at this point

Enthusiast

JochieSantiago JochieSantiago it’s a long game to go… nothing should first be able to stand its own well before entering the big game such as Google apps. Google has enough resource, maybe enough to feed next 5 gens… while nothing is still nothing… Google entered the game long ago, slowly wiped out each competitors in each field. For a company like nothing, it’s not even time to start thinking about it. Even if they develop these, how many of us will use? How many other company will buy this from them? I don’t think anyone would be willing to ditch google for Nothing Apps. How much profit can company make? All are these in question. Not even other biggies like say op or mi are making apps to replace g apps. All you can do is silently make a plan for future, set them as long time goals, do it when the time’s right.

Nothing Gallery is basic, would love to have options like blacklisting… i personally don’t want all folder to be shown, man it’s dirty will low pixel images showing as thumbnail, a big turnoff… ui is pretty slick, but needs improvement.

3GB doesn’t feel major? Idk dude… what to say… maybe i used smaller phones ?

At this point they shouldn’t have released the so called flagship

HSD

Let the watchdogs and fanboys of Nothing keep defending featureless android updates as “minimalism”.

And of course, quit using Nothing phones and switch brands. Well, that’s what’s going to happen in the future from a lot of users who are done complaining and fighting with the toxic community here.

megatomic

HSD I’m glad they’re not loading our phones down with bloat like what we see in Chinese skins. I guess I’m in the target demographic.

Villager

Enthusiast then why Nothing release tons of variation of the phone like their big manufacturers

ThamaraiKannan

When Nothing 2a will receive this update?

JochieSantiago

ThamaraiKannan next year.

@Enthusiast if they decide to go that route, their apps must have features that rival or even best Google apps. Part of the users here would love more Nothing themed apps. Maybe the NP4 will be a bigger step up and a true Flagship for the company. People would pay good money for a phone that can rival the iPhone 17 pro max and the S 25 ultra.

@HSD I agree with you, unfortunately… those kinds of people will drive current and future buyers away.

Thanish Thahir

ThamaraiKannan in the Coming Weeks, before 2026.

Enthusiast

JochieSantiago they made their route clear in the beginning itself, I liked that path, that’s why chose it. Features route? I talked about it earlier, I can’t make it more clear than that. So far, decisions they made this year had been duds, maybe like a gooseberry it might taste better later

Ofc, everyone here love n themed apps and community itself is producing alot of great stuff. I would love to have an m themed map tbh, like one we see as a glimpse in image details

JochieSantiago

Enthusiast and they are changing it by adding adware. Their reason is understandable,but as I said before, understanding≠acceptance

Naren

megatomic

So where is lock glimpse company headquartered

AbiS_MjZL72iTVk

megatomic That is not so far.If again the company faces another major financial loss , sure you’ll have bloats that fill your phone too