Nothing Launcher beta now live — initial impressions and how to use

• Carl Pei-led Nothing has released the Nothing Launcher on the Play Store.
• The launcher is currently in beta and is available for selected devices.
• Here’s everything you need to know about the Nothing Launcher.

Carl Pei-led Nothing Technologies is reportedly working on its smartphone, which is said to be dubbed as the Nothing phone (1). Ahead of the launch, the company has released the Nothing Launcher, which is currently in beta.

The Nothing Launcher is currently available for selected devices, including the Pixel series, the Galaxy S21 series, the Galaxy S22 series, and select OnePlus devices. It is expected that support for more devices will be added in the coming days.

“We’re excited to share Nothing Launcher (Beta) with you. The first iteration of Nothing OS. Your first taste of phone (1),” Nothing said in its blog post.

How to download and use the Nothing Launcher

You can download and use the Nothing Launcher on selected Android devices. For this example, we have used a Samsung smartphone.

• Download the Nothing Launcher from here on your Android smartphone.
• Now, go to “Settings”, scroll down and find “Apps”.
• Now, click on “Choose default apps”.
• Then, click on “Home app” and select “Nothing Launcher”.

The launcher from Nothing will give you an idea of how the Nothing phone (1) may look like.

Bonus content from Nothing

In addition to the launcher, Nothing has also released some bonus content for fans. This includes two wallpapers, 2 ringtones and a notification tone. You can download the content from here.

Here’s how the Nothing Launcher looks -

Starting with the home screen, the launcher features a simplistic design. You can choose between a 4x5 app grid and a 5x5 app grid, based on your preference.

The Nothing Icon pack offers a near-stock Android experience. You can go to settings and enable notification dots, which show up on apps which you have received a notification from.

Coming to widgets, Nothing has offered three widgets with the launcher - analogue clock, digital clock and weather. While the analogue clock worked well, the digital clock and weather looked a bit odd. However, we expect this to be improved in the coming days.

All in all, the launcher looks very minimalistic and there isn’t much to explore in apart from the home screen and menu. The rest looks much like the stock Android experience and if you are someone who does not like a cluttered device, you can give Nothing Launcher a try. Just be sure not to keep your expectations high.

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