Nothing debuted as a tech brand last year with the Ear 1 earplugs† These are wireless earplugs with active noise reduction, a different design and a competitive price. Nothing founder Carl Pei set himself against competitors in the price range by giving the earplugs the allure of the more expensive Apple.
On that basis, Pei wants to continue with Nothing’s first smartphone, the Phone 1. That phone will appear this summer, Pei told yesterday in a retro-futuristic video in which details were mostly missing: only the interface of the upcoming phone was shown. With Nothing, Pei is clearly sticking to the strengths of its previous brand, OnePlus.
OnePlus and Oppo
OnePlus was for years the most striking and different brand among Android phones. Pei left in 2020 and the raw edge of OnePlus has now largely disappeared: the phones look suspiciously like those of OnePlus owner Oppo. Nothing now picks up where OnePlus left off, spreading out new product reveals over weeks to months.
Drop by drop, Nothing reveals new details to rekindle fans’ enthusiasm for a market that Pei says has become dull. “Today everyone is so impassioned when it comes to technology,” Pei says in conversation with Wired† Born in China and raised in Sweden, Pei established Nothing in London and is now expanding the company into an international collaboration of modern design.
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Well-known designers on board
Last year’s Ear 1 earplugs were designed in collaboration with Swedish audio brand Teenage Engineering. With transparent materials, its own font and use of the colors black, white and red, Nothing has its own face, which is now also clearly visible in the telephone interface.
British electronics maker Dyson is also an inspiration, Pei tells The Verge† No wonder, former Dyson head of design Adam Bates now works for Nothing as director of design. “Having a senior position at Dyson allows him to bring a lot from his old team. We probably have one of the best industrial design teams in the world,” said Pei.
Bates is now working with Teenage Engineering head of design Jesper Kouthoofd and Tom Howard, lead designer of Nothing. According to Pei, the three work closely with all teams within Nothing, from hardware to software. According to Pei, that is different with the large telephone makers. “Many large companies have huge silos between different teams. Nothing wants to propagate a ‘single vision’, but in the meantime has spread its design teams between the US, UK and China.
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Taking the Apple to the Crown
With his team, Pei has great aspirations. He wants competitors with Apple and the company’s so-called ‘walled garden’: Apple products work together seamlessly, but there is no room for equipment from other brands in that walled garden.
Pei wants his products eventually to be capable of something like Universal Control, the newest feature of Macs and iPads. This allows users to control both devices with one mouse, drag files back and forth, all without ever having to set up anything. Ultimately, Nothing wants an ecosystem that also works seamlessly, but consists of both its own products and third-party devices.
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More details to follow
It is clear that the first phone from Nothing runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, and uses Android. The device appears to be transparent, with possibly luminous strips on the back. Pei does not yet know whether those comics will soon show notification colors, a function that was standard on all Android phones in the early days.
The device will run on Nothing OS, a so-called Android skin. Transparency, the own font and the colors black, white and red are leading. Features are still unknown, but Nothing OS will contain “only the essentials”, according to Pei, where “every byte has its use”.
Nothing will be heard regularly in the coming weeks and months. Then it will become clear whether it can live up to its own high expectations.
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