Carl Pei’s Nothing is today formally launching Android 13 for the Nothing Phone after a soft launch last week (1).
Today, Carl Pei’s startup revealed that the Nothing Phone (1) is now widely receiving its Android 13 update. The update was first made available to beta users last week, but as of today, it is accessible to all Phone owners (1).
Nothing describes the updates to “Nothing OS 1.5,” the company’s skin over Android, in a blog entry. Given that this is the first big Android upgrade the company has carried out—the Nothing Phone (1) debuted with Android 12 out of the box—Nothing claims that this is its “most significant upgrade yet.” This makes perfect sense.
What’s new? The full changelog lists a host of improvements, fixes, and new features, but some highlights include:
- New Nothing weather app.
- Refined camera app interface.
- Up to 50% increase in app loading speed.
- More “Material You,” meaning more color schemes available for matching third-party apps to wallpaper.
- Lockscreen shortcut customisations. Create shortcuts for camera, torch, device controls, and wallet.
- Easily switch data usage when using dual SIM with the improved network Quick Settings panel. Improved volume control.
- Easily adjust individual volume sliders without unlocking the screen (e.g., music vs. ringtone).
On August 15, 2022, Android 13 was first made available for Google Pixel phones. Since then, it has been generally available for Samsung and OnePlus devices. Nothing about this one is undoubtedly behind the times, which is unexpected given the company’s thin Android skin. The fact that Carl Pei initially had a negative attitude towards the update, however, does not astonish us greatly.
