How we build Software

Dan🧑💻 · 2026-09-04T10:18:00+00:00

Hi! I’m Dan. I joined Nothing in January, and I am in charge of software for Nothing phones. If you watched the Nothing OS 5.0 video (the one where Carl is playing pool), I am the person chatting to Rob at the end. I’ve been speaking to @Louis ☕️, @Rohit and @Zac 🛸, and they suggested I start writing more on Nothing community. Transparency is a big part of what we do at Nothing, so I’ll be on here more regularly. I’ll share what I am thinking about Nothing software, and I want to know what you think too. — What do you do all day? Most of my job is about prioritisation. There are so many good ideas out there that Nothing could be building, but we have to decide which gets made. Sometimes this is based on user feedback, data and the market, and sometimes it’s a gut feel we have for something we really believe in. Let’s take Nothing OS 5.0 as an example - by now you should have a better understanding of what is coming, so I won’t rattle off features, but I’ll try and explain the thinking behind it. — Why do people buy our phones? We start by asking why users like Nothing phones, and our software. There are lots of ideas out there, here are just a few: It’s a rejection of other big phone companies, and feels distinct. That says something about the people who buy it - they have good taste in tech. For software, that means it should look and feel different to everything else. Touching grass - People are tired of having their attention sucked into their phone every day. “Nothing” means a life without unnecessary tech, just the stuff which you choose to include in your life. Cryptic and playful - “Nothing” is about making tech fun again, and it is meant to be a bit mysterious. You have to use our phones for a while to unlock their secrets. There are lots of others too - some of our features are focused on personal productivity, and sometimes we do stuff about creativity and personalisation. There are too many ideas. We cannot do all of them. The ideas that I am most excited about are the ones that tie back to how Nothing started. We are called “Nothing” - a rejection of needless excess. Our logo looks like it is from a dot matrix printer, our first phone was called phone (1), and our phones look like they are right off the production line - transparent enough for you to see the inner workings. We can apply these ideas to software - by keeping the design minimalistic but different and cool, by building features that help you stay away from your phone rather than dragging you back to it, and by keeping the OS as a simple blank canvas you can make your own. We used these ideas to decide what we built in Nothing OS 5.0. — Nothing OS 5.0 We wanted to focus on improving what we already do well, rather than adding things that might feel un-Nothing. We didn’t want to drift away from what made all of you like us in the first place. That is why we focused a lot on broad improvements to design and experience across the OS, rather than just one new area. We did a full audit of everything we have built over the last few years, looking for points of friction, and looking at how features are really being used after they go live. We know from looking at our analytics that a lot of our most interesting features aren’t used by everyone. For example, we know it takes a long time for users to configure Essential Notifications, and some never figure it out at all. This is our fault, not theirs, so we created the Glyph app to make this easier. We also know that if you are used to using OS4.1, sometimes it can feel basic in places - a lack of polish and character. We wanted to make using our OS every day delightful in lots of small ways, so we added a lot of UX improvements, upgraded the visual style, added more motion design, and tweaked the tech to make everything feel smoother and quicker. Where we have introduced new features we tried to base them on gaps we saw in how users actually use our phones. We visited stores, talked to users and took lots of photos of their homescreens and lock screens (even if their phone wasn’t a Nothing phone). We kept those near our product and design teams while we were working. We saw that some users wanted a detailed and techy UI, while some wanted their phone to look simple and slick. That’s why we created the two new lock screen clock faces - one minimal and stylish, one intricate and packed with information, almost like a terminal. We wanted everything we added to be inspired by a user’s needs and preferences, and built with love and creativity. You will have to tell us whether you think we’ve achieved our goal. — Why don’t you build a Nothing (insert existing app here)? We get a lot of requests from the community to build things like a Nothing Dialler, Messaging app or Calculator. We did build a Nothing Weather app, but haven’t expanded much beyond that. I can understand for many of you it is frustrating to drop out of the Nothing world into the Android world. The main reason we haven’t done this is comparing the cost to the benefit it brings. The dialler is a good example - there is a lot of regulation and requirements from carriers for diallers, covering things like emergencies and accessibility. The Google app also provides things like call screening, spam protection and caller ID. Building a new dialer is harder than it looks, and isn’t just a one-off cost - we’d have to keep spending money on it every time there was an Android update, regulatory change or carrier need. At the size we are, that would mean we’d have to deprioritize a lot of other things that we think are more valuable. It is again a question of prioritisation - if we did it, we’d either have to charge more for our phones, or do much less with our other software. The dialler is a very mature product - we don’t think there’s much value we can add in how it works right now. It would look better. It would not work better. We could make a calculator look like its from Nothing, but we can’t invent new Nothing maths. For the near future at least, we will be leaving most of the Google apps as-is, and focusing on making the overall OS shell and a few hero apps feel very Nothing. — What’s next? Our teams are focused on rolling out the Nothing OS 5.0 release across all supported devices, and are starting development on 5.1. Nothing OS 5.1 will be a smaller release, but still with a few exciting changes. (We will finally be allowing users to remap the Essential Key, for example). Lots of us are already starting to focus on what we do for Nothing OS 6.0 next year. This process should always start with talking to users, so we will be doing store visits, user interviews and hopefully talking to some of you over the next few months. It is still in the abstract stage at the moment - we are trying to refine our understanding of why people like Nothing phones, how their expectations of us are changing, and what is possible as technology evolves. 🗣️ I’d like to know what you think. You aren’t typical users, you are our core fans, so you know what feels like Nothing and what feels weird. What makes Nothing good? How would you describe it to a friend who has never heard of us? What would be an un-Nothing thing for us to build? Why would it feel wrong? If I keep writing about how we build software, what would you like to know about?

cegixeg188

Daniel Sorry there was a typo i mean 2a

Neon_Pacing

Dan🧑‍💻 thanks for the mention ,One thoughtful feature i regularly use in nothing os is double click power button to launch an app,resisable quick settings tiles for one handed use ,quick setting tiles as lock screen widgets ,nothing os has made access to things much faster/convenient if doesn’t get in my way and well clean and lightweight software,coming from a OnePlus 5 I tried out a samsung galaxy s20fe 5g and a OnePlus 13 just to find them fighting against me , nothing phone 2 remind me of why I fell in love with close to stock Android again no forced gàussian blur or liquid glass effects,no clutter of home screen and app drawer with unwanted preinstalled apps or ads baked in,no trying to fight Google apps with every alternative like a separate app store ,a seperate browser just pure utility.

ChrisJ_Joseph_P1NpRo6vMr

Dan🧑‍💻 don’t mind me , I will put it here and there in feedback thread but it is high time we need a nothing OS style spiced up settings icon instead of this default Android icon.

Amal

Dan🧑‍💻 I have two questions regarding the software and camera experience:

1. Video processing and fluidity:

Why is it that Android smartphones, in general—not just Nothing phones—still struggle to achieve the same level of video processing and overall fluidity that we see on iPhones? Apple seems to consistently deliver very smooth, stable and natural-looking video, especially in areas like stabilization, frame consistency, exposure transitions, HDR and overall processing.

Is this mainly a limitation of Android’s software/camera framework, differences in hardware and ISP integration, or simply the way manufacturers implement their video processing? Do you think Android devices can eventually reach an Apple-level benchmark in video quality and fluidity through software optimization?

2. A “Freeze Apps” feature for better battery life:

Could you consider adding a feature that allows users to completely freeze selected apps when they’re not needed? Ideally, a frozen app would be prevented from running in the background, using CPU/RAM, syncing or consuming battery, and would only become active again when the user manually opens it.

Something similar to this would be really useful for apps that we rarely use but don’t want to uninstall. It could potentially provide better standby battery life while giving users more control over background activity.

Would it be possible to add such a feature in a future software update?

grepGander

Amal 2. A “Freeze Apps” feature for better battery life:

Could you consider adding a feature that allows users to completely freeze selected apps when they’re not needed? Ideally, a frozen app would be prevented from running in the background, using CPU/RAM, syncing or consuming battery, and would only become active again when the user manually opens it.

Something similar to this would be really useful for apps that we rarely use but don’t want to uninstall. It could potentially provide better standby battery life while giving users more control over background activity.

https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/memory-management

UpawNothing

Dan🧑‍💻 Would it be possible to provide web access to essential space? This would make essential space more useful across all my devices.

Amal

grepGander what happens when we force stop apps..The same can be implemented to save battery life.. Unimportant apps can be forced stop to save battery life , nothing 4a has heavy battery draining

pocixad748

Dan🧑‍💻 Hello Dan sir

I have a question why aren’t you giving option to disable the internet and wifi for an app.

Like give us an option to completely disabke the internet acess for the app like a firewall.

grepGander

Amal If they’re needed (for the system) they will turn on again and waste more energy (CPU cycles) doing so 😁 If they’re not necessary for the system and if they’re low priority apps (not high priority like messengers etc.), the system will kill them anyway. Reboot to safe mode to check where the drain is coming from, if it’s really from the system (third party apps will be disabled). Press and hold restart to get there:

If no drain when in safe mode then some of your apps are causing you problems.

Deepak_TyWxL0qyCl

Dan🧑‍💻 l love new signal, flight mode, vibration mode and overall animation fluidity of the software. Love the new Geist font also. I have one request since there is no stock dialer and message app for nothing phone. Can you add Geist font to the Google messages and dialer. And one lock screen clock with New Geist font. I think it will look more consistent and trustworthy.

New features and apps are great but I think consistency makes more trust than new features.

What’s your thoughts on this?

ledeux369

Dan🧑‍💻 That was really interesting. Thanks Daniel.

sejebed873

Dan🧑‍💻 Hello nothing team, why doesn’t the NOS 5.0 support Lucent theme in the Quick settings and app drawer. Plese make it happen it will look cool.

Second thing please give an extra option so that in lucent theme we get those nothing red instead of getting expressive colour.

Third the bluetooth and the wifi tile doesn’t fully turn off the service isntead it just disconnect the connection.

averyvi

_8OMIC_ The music player is a great idea. However if you want something like this, please propose a few ideas.

Where would the mp3 files come from. They cannot appear out of thin air and Nothing implementing yt-dlp or something similar would cause a lot of legal trouble. for them.
There’s already a lot of open mp3 players and some even in the Nothing style, why make another one? There has to ve a distinction, otherwise it’s just a waste of resources.
Making such an app takes valuable time from making the OS itself better.

Unless you can address these points, you cannot be demanding this app.

_8OMIC_

averyvi yeah , thank you mate for such an explanation over the topic , but Dan already explained me all the legal stuff and how hard it is to even think about it. So i already put that idea on rest.

Jandie

@Dan🧑‍💻 I want to send you the feedback regarding the camera post processing. i had a long conversation with your nothing feedback team but after more than months of cat and mouse game i left sending feedback to the team.

Why the camera post processing i so bad like i bought Phone 2a and no doubt camera is better but it have also disappointed me a lot in some scenarios.
Like when we see in the Viewfinder then we find it perfect and after clicking it post processes the photo and make it too contrasty and ugly.

so please give us option to turn off the post processing befor the Phone 2a reaches its end.

Thank you

imri81471

Dan🧑‍💻 i hope it will be worse then essential remaper i didn’t buy it for nothing 😅 (i mean for no reason not for the company)

LoiiQas

Give me please Android 17 on my nothing phone 1.

Sumit

Why the app drawer & search’s app layout ***smart ***is still in beta ?

RJUploads

neos but even with the dialer, there are levels to the call screening from Google, the pixels have the best dialer if you ask me, why can’t they just use the entire sweet that the pixel has since it is already established, and I know it’s not exclusive just to the pixel line because my Motorola edge plus 2023 has that sweet for call screening built in, but my razr 2024 does not. And my nothing 4a pro has the basic setup

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