Nothing Phone (1) Revealed With Its Own OS

Nothing has officially unveiled, well, nothing. Although the company has officially announced that the Nothing phone (1) will be released this summer, it hasn't revealed the design of the handset. This is clearly one of the most eagerly anticipated details of the Nothing phone (1), given the striking look of its design-forward Nothing ear (1) earbuds. All that has been confirmed about the Nothing phone (1) is that it will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset following a previous announcement that it had struck up a technical partnership with the smartphone chip giant.

One plus about the announcement, however, is that Nothing has given us an early peek at Nothing OS, its Android-based operating system that will run on the Nothing phone (1). The company says that its new OS will "capture the best features of pure Android, distilling the operating system to just the essentials, where every byte has a purpose." As you can see from the image below, Nothing OS has a stock Android look and feel, although this has been embellished with custom fonts and colors; it will also feature bespoke UI elements and sounds. In many ways, Nothing OS sounds a lot like the early incarnations of the OnePlus Oxygen OS, which won a lot of fans with its refinements and improvements to stock Android OS.

In something of a surprise, Nothing has revealed that the first preview of Nothing OS will arrive via its launcher, which will be available to download on "select" smartphones next month. It seems like Google's Pixel phones would be an ideal test bed, but it will also be interesting to see which other devices to which Nothing extends the availability of its Nothing OS launcher — which might also offer some hints as to the audience the company is targeting for the Nothing phone (1).

In other announcements, Nothing revealed that it has now raised $144 million in seed funding and has amassed a team of more than 300 people. It is on this platform that Nothing CEO Carl Pei says it will "mark the start of change for the sleepy smartphone market," when it launches the Nothing phone (1) later this year. The company has also announced a new $10 million allocation for an upcoming equity-based community investment round. It revealed that its first community round raised $1.5 million in a "record beating 54 seconds." Early business investors in Nothing include heavyweights like Tony Fadell, ex-CEO of Google Nest and also known as the "Father of the iPod."