Hey there, my name is will and I have recently joined the nothing community, switching over from Apple. In this thread Iām hoping to go over some things that i would love to see in future updates.
Before I go into some of the different features please bear in mind of a few things:
- Iām an ex apple user, meaning I may have a big oversite at the complexity of adding these features.
- I love this company, the OS, and my Phone 2 so much so this shouldnāt be taken as me shitting on the OS or the company and that Iām just giving suggestions that I think would help to achieve a software that feels more cohesive and professional.
So the ideas for improvements:
Weather app
Google pay (I understand its more related to google pay in general than the software)
Notification System
Lock screen widgets
Let air pods be recognised in the nothing x app (so the info can be displayed through widget)
The weather app
I love this app, the design is clean and works well. However there are a few issues, with the accessing future data. Just want to make i have no issues with pulling data from another source as this weather app does, however i think could be improved is at least being able to see (in detail, not being linked off to the site) what the different stats are for the coming 7 days. To me i doesnāt have to be super accurate for the next predicted stats, however i feel i would much rather not have anything happen when i click the next day weather stat icons then being linked off the site which the data is pulled from. To me i just comes across as being a little unpolished, considering there was lots of time and effort put into the design of the app.
Google pay
Now i understand that this is most likely not a nothing os or nothing phone issue, as its google pay. However it seems that there are still lots of places that donāt take google pay, or if that they say they do take google pay i almost have to put my phone inside of the payment terminal just for it to register. I dont know if its down to the NFC reader being weaker in the phone or if its legit just a google pay, being odd. But if there is anything that can be sorted through software update. Would be amazing. But i mostly understand that its outside of the hands of Nothing itself.
Notifications
I understand that Nothing OS is a skin for android 14, however the notifications system feels odd. Now i was an apple user so im still not quite acclimatised to the android 14 notification system (so take this with a grain of salt), however I would suggest just a nicer layout for notifications, making them feel more apart of a complete OS then something that has just been left, because it works. Seeing how apple has displayed it in a round style tab, that collapses when not needed, and can be easily read and understand is what i feel nothing the OS could really benefit from in terms of it moving from ājust a skinā (which it isnāt) to its own software entirely. Creating a well crafted simple, yet detailed experience where a notification can be read at the lock screen, stack in a way that doesnāt take up a lot of room, and change it to feel more, nothing-esc. This isnāt really a gripe at the software just more something that is down to personal preference and also not being use to the android side of notifications.
Lock screen widget compatibility
Lock screen widgets are really cool, we see it with the stock nothing app widgets, however something i would like to see is adding third party widgets (like on the home screen) to the lock screen. Notably Google calendar, so you can see up coming events at a moments glance, without having to open up the phone and the app itself. And if the issue is keeping the lock screen to just nothing widgets, maybe making a calendar app, that pulls the calendar event data from google calendar, if that is something that you can doā¦ā¦.
Extending the Air pod support (beta feature)
Air pod support on nothing x app. I feel i need to clarify here. I do not think that this is necessary as it is not your product and you could totally do an āappleā and outright ignore it. However i feel (considering this is a beta feature already) that having it so that your already made nothing x app, could recognise your Air pods and display the information on the widgets of the nothing x app, obv not needing to change equalisation and etc like it does with the nothing/cmf products. This, again is a nicety as there is no real reason as to why you need to add it however i feel that if this info is going to be offered in the form of displaying it in the details of the Bluetooth setting, then maybe having it displayed on the widget for nothing x app, may just take it to the next level of compatibility options.
Just to make it clear that none of these āissuesā arenāt really issues. They are more things that i feel would improve the overall appearing and feel of the software. And that while these are things that i noticed, they have not really taken away from the enjoyability and excitement i have had while using and setting up this phone. I love Nothing and what they are aiming to do in the market, i feel very grateful for having an alternative to apple, and i still love this company, software and phone regardless of the these slight things āissuesā.
Before i get shouted out š
for looking at the OS with a magnifying class and nit picking things about it, I would just like to thank anyone who has read through the end, and that im still fairly new to this community and the android scene in general so Iām completely a novice when it comes to this side of the tech wall, and thank you in advance for not taking this super personal or as if Iām being a snobbish apple user.
