It’s been a while since my last post, How Nothing could bring Essential Space to older phones (if they want to). After that post they launched Phone 3 series with a new Essential feature: Essential Search. I’m back with more rant and update on my last post.
Essential Space:
We got an official response regarding Essential Space for older models, it’s not coming. I’m not surprised, they already had their excuse.
They also said:
I understand your point, but Nothing have decided on this to keep the user experience the same on all Nothing devices.
I really don’t understand how this makes the user experience the same. It is literally the opposite. They are artificially keeping it exclusive.
Some other companies (like Carl’s ex) released similar features and found ways to release for their older phones without an extra button.
Essential Search:
It’s been a while since the Phone 3 launch and unlike Essential Space, Essential Search does not require a new button. I thought they would add it for feature parity but I guess I was wrong.
First I thought they would add it with Nothing OS 3.1, 3.2 or 3.5. We received some updates (last one was today) including 3.2 but it is still missing.
However, we could just sideload the Essential Search app from Phone 3 system dump as a workaround and surprise surprise, it works, until today.
Today, they released Essential Search app in Play Store and it is (still) exclusive to Phone 3 users. We can also sideload it but AI functionality doesn’t work. Because they also released Nothing Launcher 3.3.14 and blocked non-Phone 3 users accessing Essential Search’s AI functionality.
Artificial Intelligence or Artificial Exclusivity?
While we are expecting them to release the feature on older models they actually went the opposite way and blocked it from users that found their way. We already know it works, it doesn’t require a button, it runs on server, there is nothing that would prevent older phones from getting it.
What are we waiting for? How long should we wait until Phone 3 loses it’s favorite child status so we can have those features?
Keeping features artificially exclusive is not doing any good to older customers. That does not make me want to buy your shiny new Phone 3, it just makes me lose my faith in the company and think about my future purchasing decisions. I started thinking that Nothing OS 4.0 AI features will be exclusive for Phone 3 (and maybe 3a series if they are generous) as well. Hope I will be wrong this time.
