One of Nothing’s boldest ideas, Essential Apps, is now available to Phone 3 users, opening up a new way to create highly personalized, AI-generated widgets for your home screen without the need for coding wizards.
The feature, currently rolling out in beta through the web-based Nothing Playground platform, is a first step toward the company’s long-term vision of an AI-native operating system called Essential OS.
What can Essential Apps do?
But what are essential apps anyway? Think of it as small but useful tools that perform very specific tasks for users in the form of a widget.
Do you want a widget that can track your water intake? Or one that finds the top rated restaurants in the area (could be very useful if you’re traveling)? The promise here is that you can create personalized widgets that perform specific tasks (tailored to your daily needs) without having to write a single line of code.
Nothing’s own example includes a widget that finds the best days and times to run outside (taking the weather and calendar into account).
All you should have to do is describe what you want (the widget’s purpose, its function, its size, etc.) in a simple text-based command, and Nothing Playground should take care of the rest.
Essential Apps can currently only access three device permissions
You can even change or edit the widget’s design or functionality after you create it. The widgets can also access information from the internet, so that’s a plus.
Currently, the Essential Apps can access three different permissions from your smartphone: Location, Calendar and Contacts. So you should be able to create location- or calendar-based reminders, countdowns, and one-tap navigation widgets.
In the future, the widgets will be able to access additional permissions, including camera, microphone, notifications, calls, vibration and Bluetooth.
As mentioned at the beginning, the Nothing Essentials Apps Beta is currently available to Phone 3 users via a waitlist. However, the company should expand support to more devices running Nothing OS 4.0 in the near future.
