Ask me anything...

Carl · 2025-09-30T14:25:00+00:00

#### ![](https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-09-30/1759241464-660717-ama.jpg "banner")**Ask me anything.** Today from 4:30M BST I'll spend some time responding to a few of your questions following todays announcement… See you then!

SelimBenayat

Daniel Hey Daniel! We are rolling out Essential Search as fast as possible across all regions. Currently, we are looking at expanding its availability in the coming quarters. We want to make sure everyone gets the best experience possible - some more polish is needed to keep expanding. Hang on tight 🙂

AradhyaChandra

Carl I wish you could enable the option to customize our clock interface colors as its just a basic necessity for a proper brand, as of now we only have a white clockface as well as a black one but you can’t interchange as it depends on the contrast of the background image, i think It would be a really good addition with the os 4.0

Err_404NotFound

CMF1_hacker Yeah, I believe some of the funding received from US tech corporations under the Tech Prosperity Deal that Donald Trump and Keir Starmer signed, will be given to Nothing to expand their AI operations. Hopefully the UK Gov sees Nothing’s AI push as a good thing for our AI tech drive in this country.

CMF1_hacker

Err_404NotFound I recently bought a place in south Oxford and there’s physical infrastructure being built/upgraded along the Oxford-Cambridge ARC over MK and a lot of the biotech/pharma is AI-enhanced, so NTL is on the right track. It would be nice for some UK-based unicorns to list in the UK but there are advantages to other locations.

Nice to see a soldier Q&A with high-level staff and proper detailed answers within the space constraints.

Yanki

Will essential search ever come to older phones?

Rob ⚡️

Adnan_28 RE: Essential Space on (2a) - We believe the magic of the Essential experience is using a dedicated key to capture all types of content, whether audio, images or screen captures. Retrofitting this into existing hardware wouldn’t deliver on the seamless experience we envisioned.

Adnan_28

Carl

Will the Playground platform be available as an app native to the device?
Custom Ringtones with Glyph Integration can be added to the platform, too

Thank you, Carl and the Nothing team for actually making “tech fun again” 💛

ShubhamPatel

@Carl Nothing Tab/laptop when? Only day to day use devices pending from your end. Also nothing watch when? We need a high performance high accuracy device to track health. Please don’t put a screen on it. Thinking more like whoop.

Asy1bek47

Will we get a community app? When?

Rob ⚡️

Asy1bek47 With essential apps maybe you can make one 😉

On a series note, it’s on our mind and would be a significant investment - it’s a logical step in growing our community - days like today show how engaged you all are with us!

sean (1)

Essential App/Widgets

Will users’ data (voice commands, app specifications, etc) be shared with third-party companies for processing, or can some/all these app-creating features be used, in full, without internet access?

Essential Space, Search and Memory

You claim “All of this is private by design”, yet Essential Space appears to deny users access to the transcripts of their voice notes unless they allow for those transcripts to be shared online with unnamed third parties for ‘processing’. The app’s privacy policy confirms speech-to-text processing is done on-device, therefore this blocker is not necessary and is a privacy concern.

{Quick note for future recall.}

I find this particularly frustratingly because I have great use for quickly transcribing critical thoughts with the Essential Key and had been looking forward to using it. Any plans to allow users to use the transcribing feature whilst offline or without connecting to oversea servers?

SelimBenayat

sean (1) Our model is hybrid due to hardware limitations. Not due to data harvesting. Nothing doesn’t store personal data outside of your device.

When features like transcription or search need extra processing power, we send the request through to our LLM provider (Google, Anthropic), but from our end, nothing is retained. We do this so we can provide the best experience for our users. If we do not send it through, we can’t offer the feature. The chip is not powerful enough, yet.

Generally, our stance is that on-device memory and identity remain local, so you stay in control. Over time, more of this will shift on-device as hardware improves. Essential’s principle is simple: your data belongs to you. You are in control. You’ll be able to edit and delete.

Sticky_PRP 🇩🇪

@Carl why can I only using one Widget

Storage:512GB
Used: 90GB

Can U explain?

RapidZapper

Sticky_PRP 🇩🇪 It’s based on RAM and not storage, it’s limited to 2 on all Nothing Phone and 6 on Phone (3) at the moment.

SelimBenayat

Sticky_PRP 🇩🇪 Hey - thanks for pointing that out! You’re right, the current “vibe-coded” Essential Apps aren’t yet fully optimized for the phone environment. That’s on us, and it’s something we’re actively improving so they feel as seamless and polished as the rest of the experience.

AndreaCopellino

Since you mentioned “new use case specific shaped devices”, can you elaborate more on situations where you think current form factors simply aren’t enough?

Carl

AndreaCopellino I will… in a few months. 🙂

SelimBenayat

felixcsa Essential OS is the evolution of Nothing OS, not a replacement. It’s still based on Android - so you’ll have the same compatibility, apps, and developer ecosystem that people love today. What we’re adding is a new experience layer on top: more personal, predictive, and adaptive. Think of it as Android at the core, with Essential making the whole system feel more fluid, coherent, and alive.

Carl

CMF1_hacker

We’re not ready to be a public company yet but we’re quickly maturing.
We’d love to do it in the UK but it doesn’t look attractive compared to the US from what I’ve learned so far. Something to learn more about in the coming years.
We’re actively hiring and we have a long term incentive program in place, but I’ve learned that most people actually prefer cash. 🙂

CMF1_hacker

Carl thank you for taking the time to organise a Q&A session with senior management/directorate and have a nice evening.

SelimBenayat

RapidZapper Thank you! That is correct 🙂

ShubhamPatel

Can you have some members work with third-party accessories developers. One of the main reasons people go for other brands is the easy availability of accessories. It would be good to not wait for a month before Nothing’s new phone cover is made by a brand.

Rob ⚡️

ShubhamPatel We have good relationships with Spigen and Arc as you may have seen from the accessories that cropped up from Phone (3) - They have both been very accommodating and made cool stuff!
Just like us, accessory brands need a lot or time to R&D accessories, they also want to be sure that the things they make will sell well!
We’ll continue to make friends in the industry and support those that want to create cool stuff for our products

Jb233

Hey Carl, nice to see you here. I’m a fan of Nothing project based in Eastern Europe. How many hours or months did it take to create the nothing os philosophy and release it for public ??

Carl

Jb233 Hmm… not really sure how to answer this. It’s a function of so many things. Ideas, capabilities, processes, partnerships…

Carl

Err_404NotFound We just really loved that name and almost used it as our company name.

But then we figured that it was also a great name for where we want to go in the future with AI.

sravanreddy323

What would be the major difference between nothing os and essential os or does both integrate into one

SelimBenayat

sravanreddy323 Essential OS is the next stage of Nothing OS—they’re not two separate things. The big difference is the experience layer: Essential adds personal apps, memory, search, and adaptive surfaces that make the device hyper-personal and predictive. Think of it as Nothing OS growing into something smarter and more fluid, rather than being replaced.

Carl

Rob ⚡️ I think it’s mainly a function of scale. We’re scaling fast, but once we’re bigger there will naturally be more accessories.

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