How we build Software

Uday

Dan🧑‍💻 The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen

Ha! I recently owned one of these 👀

If I keep writing about how we build software, what would you like to know about?

I would love to learn more in-depth about your process in user surveys and analytics, and how you interpret them and translate them to a brief. Any specific example would be very insightful. Also, how your teams leverage AI in the development process.

I hope to see more posts from you in here!

abrahambatresw

Hi Dan🧑‍💻! thank you for sharing this! As a fellow designer these are the type of things I’ve always thought “why don’t we just be super honest with the users and tell them?” so it’s exciting to actually see this level of transparency in practice.

I think what makes nothing good is that a lot of the functionality and visual design feels very intentional. It just gives off this feeling that it leaves out the majority of the stuff that you don’t need, and innovates in things that really affects for day to day use. Stuff that makes me go “huh, I didn’t realize I needed that but its really handy”, and over time ends up becoming something I rely on or take for granted. And I think the thing that holds all these things together to make it very Nothing is the visual and motion touches. For example, OS 5’s really quick and snappy open/close animation speaks “I’m here as soon as you need, but I’m out of here as soon as you don’t” Its hard to put it in words, but there’s this really consistent “Nothing” look that is present across the OS, which isn’t reliant on just a single font or color. If I had to describe it, maybe if would be something like retro techy vibes but made minimal? I had a Samsung phone before my current nothing phone. Samsung’s UI is well known for its deep customization (especially in good lock), which I’ve had a lot of fun messing with. but I feel like it sacrifices quality for quantity. Often times the customization options are there, but when you choose them, it won’t look coherent with the rest of the UI, suddenly the animation will feel different, etc. I think what makes Nothing different is that it might offer less options but you have the guarantee that regardless of the option you choose, you get the same level of polish and care, and everything feels coherent.
I think an un-Nothing thing to build would be new features that are device specific (unless there’s a really good reason). I haven’t encountered this issue since I’m on phone 3, but I’ve heard that essential space was not available on the phone 2 series because the lack of a physical button, but I feel like this was something that could have been solved with something like a swipe gesture, and with no further explanation, it gave the impression that it was a plan to deliberately make users switch to the newer models (not saying that’s actually the case). I might have also brought up the unconfigurable essential key scenario if you hadn’t mentioned that it’s going to change in 5.1. But I know that once you enable a configuration option, it’s super hard to undo, so I can understand why you might’ve waited a while to see if it was really worth the price.
In addition to all the great stuff your team’s working on, I’d be interested to know about things that you thought about including, but ultimately decided not to. I think that helps answer a lot of questions, and give a clear ideas on what the current priorities are.

Igor S 🇸🇰

I would like in nothing OS 6.0 🙂

- put the status bar in the drop-down menu by sliding your finger down, turns on, turns off on the mobile home screen

- background generator with more generation options, more styles like adding glass effects, blurring, other movement, various textures

- ringtone and notification generator, SMS generate glyphs with ringtones that would be super perfect

- moving icons just so minimalistically something would move

- more icon styles, different types of icons styles

- add the effect of magnetic peeling of application menus, drop down menu, magnetic peeling of icons when moving

- add frozen wallpapers

- turn on turn off add a media volume bar so I don’t have to fiddle with the buttons but solve the volume in software 🤩

- remember htc widgets clock where the weather cloud moved in front of the clock widget and the sun came out, rain lightning clouds such a transparent widget vitrovať with clock without clock

choose something from it 🙂

LyphLeaf

Would you consider the following about call recording feature in Essential Space?

Allow calls to be recorded automatically (with the user manually run transcribing and summarizing the auto recordings later)
Replace the disclaimer sound with a beep (like Google Dialer) during call recording, or remove it for some legally permitted countries/regions (East Asia). While the Recorder app already supports system recording without disclaimer sounds during calls for some countries/regions, but it would be better to focus on Essential Space when it comes to managing recorded data.

Timey

Dan🧑‍💻 I’m gonna be a bit rude and just add a reply myself.

When you use a setting in the camera app (e.g. the Glyph Mirror), this setting appears on the black “taskbar” where the icons for the flash and Google Lens are. But when the aforementioned setting is deactivated, the icon dissapears after a few seconds.

I would find it pretty convenient if you could pin ceartin settings on that “taskbar” permanently. Then you could have a smoother access to the settings you actually use.

Dan🧑‍💻

Timey not rude, helpful.

It’s Friday evening and I might have had a beer now so any replies I do after this point are strictly unofficial.

100rav

Dan🧑‍💻 why can’t we upload the HDR photos on social media ( Instagram )

These are already available in iPhones Samsung phones and even in pixel phones…what’s stopping nothing from enabling it..

Another thing is…

I’ve seen in NP3 and NP4 series…there is an option of HDR while video recording…why it doesn’t shows on my phone 3A

Please answer these concerns..

grepGander

100rav These are already available in iPhones Samsung phones and even in pixel phones…what’s stopping nothing from enabling it..

Instagram itself supports only the Samsung Galaxy S24 series or newer, and the Google Pixel 8 series or newer from Android phones for now. Nothing else.

100rav I’ve seen in NP3 and NP4 series…there is an option of HDR while video recording…why it doesn’t shows on my phone 3A

Because it can’t record HDR:

The 8s Gen 4 can:

3RDWORLDS

neos make a custom preset name it “default”, set resolution to 50MP, save and set it as default. Takes a minute to achieve this.

Филип

Dan🧑‍💻

Tech that doesn’t eat your analog life - that’s Nothing. Only Essentials, Nothing else.
Un-Nothing thing to do would be to make transparent hardware, but not transparent privacy policy. Biggest pushback wasn’t a phone design, but rather the pre-installed bloatware services on Phone (3a) Lite — which thankfully was resolved by a software update. In an era where A.I. is like Despacito, un-Nothing would be A.I. bloat with bad privacy.
If you keep writing about how you build software, it would be good to continue your concise description about prioritization, especially for people who don’t work into I.T. Especially for mobile, with every new software version there are so many things changing such as permissions and services, that to update many custom apps, would require a lot of resources. Also the need for backwards compatibility.

Note: The on-device models are amazing, such as the optional Gallery object remover tool.

SayoG

Hi @Dan🧑‍💻 Currently nothing OS is not very one hand accessible and few other things. For upcoming changes if you can consider this it would improve the user experince alot.
- Please adjust the position of the home screen folder popup. It currently opens too high on the screen, which makes it difficult to reach with one hand. The folder position in the app drawer is much more accessible and could be used as a reference.

- New NOS5 Quick settings with single hand seems counterintuitive with music player placement.

- Option to disable top screen tap long tap which opens the quick settings. This casues issue during phone calls.

- Gaps and design consitienty accross the OS. With NOS5 we can notice many inconsistencies.

- Haptics are little weird on NOS. Something which can be improved upon.

- Please allow users to rename categories and move apps between categories in the Smart App Drawer. Some of my apps are currently placed in the wrong categories, and there is no option to correct them.

- Volume normalisation issue with Nothing Phone (3) speakers
#3870416
Looks like Nothing eq is causing the issue here.

- High ideal time bettry drain on nothing 3 phone.

- Hopefully we are getting native (no scan to share) airdrop sync like many other andriod vendors in NOS5.

Rehan

Dan🧑‍💻 Hi dan one question about the Phone (2a). Will Essential Voice or any of the newer AI features eventually come to the Phone (2a)? Currently, the 2a seems to be missing most of these AI features, so I’d really appreciate some clarity on whether they’re planned for the 2a or not.

Sheepstealer

Hey Dan and everyone, thanks for making things more straightforward.

I just wish we could have Nothing Notes and Nothing Calendar. They feel more useful and reasonable for the Nothing ecosystem than apps like the dialer or calculator.

A Nothing Calendar could also work really well with Essential, while Nothing Notes could be a more private, dedicated place for notes on the phone.

Anish2306

Dan🧑‍💻 I don’t is this the correct place to ask this but still , can we expect nothing’s own dialer to be released in the upcoming updates. Google dialer is the only thing I hate in my nothing phone 3 . Google dialer is such a scrap

grepGander

Anish2306 I don’t is this the correct place to ask this but still , can we expect nothing’s own dialer to be released in the upcoming updates. Google dialer is the only thing I hate in my nothing phone 3 . Google dialer is such a scrap

SatishKumar_02

Dan🧑‍💻 i regretting buying nothing phone 😭.

Because your software update is very bad looking 😕

Just a bad things you do with nos 5.0.

Learn something from Apple, their software seems so improved that’s why people copy it, people buy your phone for the clean OS experience but remember to go with the times otherwise you will be killed.

grepGander

SatishKumar_02 Learn something from Apple, their software seems so improved

iOS 4 vs iOS 27, that’s 16 years apart:

“Groundbreaking” changes 😄

Or if you want something shorter with even less change - iOS 16 (2022) vs 27 (2026):

SatishKumar_02

grepGander You guys were on the side of nothing, that’s why I felt bad about it, sorry for that 😂🙏🏽

Dan🧑‍💻

SatishKumar_02 sorry you regret buying a Nothing phone, but maybe it just wasn’t for you.

We learn a lot from Apple - how could we not? They invented the form factor (or were the first to do it successfully, at scale). We still learn a lot from them today.

We do want to be different though. Apple has to appeal to everyone - from the grandmother who just uses WhatsApp to a teenager who inherited their first phone from a parent and wants to play music and games. This means they have to be cautious and slow moving. They also have an interest in the industry staying the same, because they are so dominant - that allows them to charge a lot more for their devices than they are probably worth. It’s a safe but expensive purchase, but not particularly exciting.

Nothing is much smaller and newer. We can’t develop things at the scale Apple does - but we have two key advantages:

We can take more risks
We don’t have to appeal to everyone - some people will hate us, but some will really love us. If enough people love us over time we can reshape the industry, but that would take years.

Maybe in a decade we will all just be buying Apple products, or maybe they will be thought of in the same way as a Nokia 3310 is now - a design icon with fond memories, but not something most people would actually use.

Dan🧑‍💻

grepGander I’m a bit confused. You’ve circled the answer to your own question

« Previous Page Next Page »