Being an Android person might be enjoyable when you get to check out new apps, launchers, and even the subsequent model of the working system earlier than they’re prepared for showtime. But what’s not enjoyable is making the most of that perk and realizing that what you’re taking part in with is nothing.

Nothing’s Nothing Launcher is accessible as a beta within the Play Store right now, for anybody who needs to cosplay like they’ve an unreleased Nothing smartphone in hand. The model is the brainchild of former OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, who tweeted right now in regards to the launcher’s availability.

There’s nothing to the launcher proper now, and I’m struggling to find out if that’s the purpose. Once put in, it’s not out there within the app drawer, and also you’ll need to manually allow it via the Android settings panel to get the launcher arrange. Head to Settings > Apps > Default Apps, and choose Home to swap launchers.

The Nothing launcher is fairly minimalist when it comes to launchers. It pairs properly with Android 12’s Material You engine, although there are not any Material-style icons or widgets to pair with the remainder of the interface.

Nothing’s “bespoke” widgets are cyber futuristic, I suppose? They come off that means with the pixels-and-digits motif. It’s creepy-looking when paired with the perforated hand on the default background, which seems to be prefer it’s styled after that scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho. Is the Nothing default wallpaper alleged to scare me into shopping for one among these smartphones?

The launcher is just not an ample preview of what’s to come back from a Nothing smartphone. It provides us no indication in regards to the {hardware} or its digital camera and processing talents. It tells us little in regards to the total person expertise, besides that it makes an attempt to dial down on Android’s busyness. That can be nice, however there are many apps that already assist with that.

The perks of Nothing

The Nothing Launcher has one neat function that you simply wouldn’t get via the inventory Pixel one. Nothing enables you to swap customized icon packs, which is neat, and the lead picture you see above features a third-party pack known as Verticons. However, it takes a second to get to the Wallpaper & Style menu; you may solely entry Nothing’s settings by long-pressing on the Home display. You can’t change it from the default Android settings panel, as you’ll on some other Android smartphone.

The Nothing Launcher beta works on the Google Pixel 5 and better and in addition on the Samsung Galaxy S21 and S22 sequence. OnePlus is manifestly lacking from the roster, although help is coming quickly. You can seize wallpapers and ringtones from a Dropbox folder to pair with the launcher. I’m shocked these weren’t included from the get-go.

Pei talked about a Discord for folk to affix in the event that they need to depart suggestions for the Nothing Launcher beta. So far, the largest complaints are that there isn’t a Google Discover feed when swiping to the left and that Material You isn’t correctly built-in into it. If you’re notably invested within the Nothing smartphone, I’d counsel you hop in there and begin providing some suggestions.