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Nothing’s upcoming OS 3.0 builds upon its distinct appearance with more custom widgets, lock screen options, an AI-powered app drawer, and more.
Android phone and accessories maker Nothing announced a new pair of open-ear wireless earbuds. In addition to showcasing the buds, Nothing also gave us a glimpse of the upcoming version of its interface for phones based on Android 15, with AI features central to the experience.
According to the company’s demo, Nothing OS, which has an edgy and distinct dot-matrix-inspired appearance, will now be optimized for better readability and refinement across various elements. Central to this change, a serif font will replace the company’s characteristic “Ndot 57” typeface, which will be used more selectively.
New Lock Screen and Home Screen Widgets
Google has added support for lock screen widgets in Android 15. Nothing OS already has dynamic widgets on the lock screen in existing versions. OS 3.0 gets broader customization options, especially for existing widgets and new lock screen clock options. The widget area can now be expanded, offering more room, especially for multiple large-sized widgets.
There’s a new hourglass-shaped countdown widget for the home screen, which can be useful when counting significant event days or months from the current time. Nothing will also add Shared Widgets, which can be shared with another person, with supported widgets like the step counter, photos, weather, etc. The Shared widget mirrors the same information or media on both devices, allowing you to converse without actively talking. To make this interesting, the OS will let you react to widget updates with stickers and emoji reactions.
Nothing OS 3.0’s Similarities With iOS
The Quick Settings menu uses customizable buttons and variable sizes for bigger tiles for actions such as media playback, much like iOS 18. The interface will also allow switching between buttons and tiles for the same controls based on your preference.
Nothing OS 3.0 also relies on AI to simplify app discovery within the app drawer. As an alternative to the traditional vertically scrolling app drawer, Nothing phones will now get a “Smart” app drawer that automatically sorts apps based on different categories—another way it mimics iOS, more specifically its App Library. For those who like a more orthodox layout, Nothing will likely continue offering the standard app drawer and the option to pin essential or frequent apps to the top.
Nothing is finally adding its own Gallery app and will no longer rely solely on Google Photos to show media. Nothing says this improves the transition from the Camera to the Gallery, which is now 25% faster. In addition to the standard grid, the Gallery app will identify and display key moments in bigger previews. It can also use AI to separate the object from the background while in the grid view without actually editing the image along with a horde of editing options. Nothing will add a natural language search option in the future to help find images based on the description of what is inside it.
Nothing OS 3.0 Availability
With these features on board, Nothing OS 3.0 will be available as an open beta starting in October, probably following the stable release of Android 15. The company also plans to roll out the stable update to eligible devices by December this year, and we expect to see it on all of its phones, including the affordable CMF Phone (1).
