Nothing OS 5.0 brings split panels, iPhone Quick Share and a new Home Screen to Phone (3)
The general release follows an Open Beta that began on August 26, and it brings a few additions of its own. Android 17 also adds indicators for when apps access the camera, microphone or location, along with a redesigned Recents screen. The big one is a redesigned Home Screen, where widgets and the search bar get transparent details and an adaptive colour system pulls tones from your wallpaper. There’s also the Micrographics lock screen clock face, which shows the date, time, weather and upcoming meetings together. Essential Space improvements will follow separately through Google Play. The interface now uses the Geist typeface, with refreshed icons, spacing and animations across the status bar, Settings, Camera and Gallery. Two new widgets join in: Collector, for building a visual collection of favourite objects, and Away Time, which tracks how long you stay off your phone. You can also move several apps and widgets on the Home Screen at once. Performance gets attention too, with better touch response, background app retention and memory management. On the AI side, Essential Voice now transcribes faster and cleaner, Essential Space adds Smart Collections, and Essential Apps Builder lets you describe, build and deploy AI-powered apps on the phone itself, no coding needed. Notifications and Quick Settings now sit in separate panels. Swipe down from the left for notifications and from the right for Quick Settings. Quick Share works across platforms as well, so you can send files to iPhones and Android phones through a QR code without installing anything extra.
Nothing has started rolling out the stable version of Nothing OS 5.0, beginning with the Nothing Phone (3). Built on Android 17, it is the company’s biggest software update so far, with more than 80 changes across design, personalisation, performance and AI. More Nothing and CMF smartphones will get it over the coming months.