The Update Gap: Why the Phone (3) not getting Monthly Security Patches 🛡️

at-kiran

Is anyone else still sitting on the January 2026 security patch for the Phone (3)?

I get that the development team is likely cooking up something big to give us better overall results and stability in the next OS rollout. I always appreciate the focus on quality over rushed features. But when it comes to basic device safety, waiting months between patches is a tough pill to swallow.

Especially living in a fast paced tech hub like Bengaluru where digital payments and sensitive data are a daily routine, running an outdated security patch feels like an unnecessary risk. Even if major OS tweaks and feature drops take time, Nothing should really consider pushing standalone security updates every single month to keep our devices locked down.

What are your thoughts? Should monthly security patches be the bare minimum for the Phone (3)? Let’s discuss

JP

at-kiran phone 3 recieved last update on 24th of February… nothing gives bimonthly updates so next will be in late April…if lucky then phone 3 will recieve nos4.1 before that and March or April security patch will be there in update also…

More than 90% of security risks/breaches are caused by human error… if you’re not side loading any apks on your phone then you’ll be good without even any security patch… my old realme 5 pro running running A10 with 2021 security patch and all payment apps works fine on it…

itc_c

Development team confirmed that it will be available in the upcoming weeks. I’ve seen other major brands skip security patches during product launches (Phone 4a in this case). It’s somewhat of a industry thing, but yeah may not be the best thing but something that we can live with considering we know it will be coming soon.

at-kiran

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.

_Nutssun_ , itc_c I understand that launching the new Phone 4a takes a lot of time and effort from the development team. But I have to disagree that putting the current flagship on hold is just an industry thing. Before this phone, I used a Pixel 4a and a Galaxy S23. Google and Samsung launched new products all the time, but they never paused my monthly security updates. Flagship users should get consistent support no matter what else is releasing.

JP You make a good point about user habits and avoiding bad apps. But my main worry is about hidden bugs in the background where you do not even have to click a link to get hacked. It is great that your older Realme still runs payment apps, but just because an app opens fine does not mean the phone is completely safe. We paid for a premium device, so we should have that same peace of mind without just hoping for the best.

Let us hope the Nothing OS 4.1 update brings a better monthly schedule with it!

_Nutssun_

Well, yes, they’ve forgotten about us for the time being, as they’re releasing a new line with the latest version of the system. It’s a bit disappointing, but understandable. I hope they’ll quickly update the “Flagship” to the latest version.

JP

at-kiran agreed… but it’s still not 2 months since last update… so it will take some time for nos4 1

Coldpaw

In addition to what @JP already said, the bimonthly updates don’t always happen early in the scheduled month. Quite often actually Nothing released security updates in the last week of a month in question, which sometimes can lead to a subjective gap in updates:

Like the September security update was rolled out within the I think first week of September, while the November update was rolled out (included in OS 4.0) during the third week of November, which resulted in a 10 week “gap” between updates, however technically it was still within the bimonthly schedule.

RitwikSondhi

Samsung and Google are gold standard in giving timely security updates to their current and older flagships, I was using S23 since its launch till last month, and Samsung never missed a single monthly security update. With other android brands same cannot be expected, they either lack money, talent or the will. Also, once in a 2-month security update isn’t that bad, as most of the financial apps and google itself provide some form of security updates every now and then.
Regarding Nothing Phone 3, it may be Nothing’s flagship, but it is nowhere near a flagship. It is a compromise. So lets keep our expectations under control 😁 .