Smartphone manufacturer Nothing has unveiled a new app creation tool utilizing artificial intelligence (AI). The company announced on September 30th (local time) that through an AI-based tool named ‘Playground’, anyone can create apps with simple text commands and distribute them on its platform, ‘Essential Apps’.
Currently, the range of creations possible with Playground is limited to widgets. It allows users to create apps with simple functions, such as flight trackers, schedule summaries, and virtual pets, using text prompts. It is also possible to modify existing widgets or adjust some code to customize them. However, Nothing does not yet offer full app creation capabilities using entire screens, judging the technology to be insufficiently mature at this point.
The announcement comes shortly after Nothing successfully secured a large-scale investment. The company secured $200 million in a round led by Tiger Global just a few weeks ago. At that time, CEO Carl Pei stated, “We will focus on developing an OS and new devices centered around AI functionality.”
In a recent interview with TechCrunch, Carl Pei remarked, “The smartphone industry is overly conservative about software improvements, following Apple’s methods and slowing down innovation.” He added, “As AI develops, operating systems will become increasingly personalized, and smartphones are not yet fully leveraging their vast contextual information.”
The first AI app introduced by Nothing is ‘Essential Space’. This app offers functions such as screenshot sharing, voice memo recording, and meeting transcription. However, these functionalities are already built into most smartphone operating systems or can be easily implemented on general-purpose AI apps.
Experts note that while this type of ‘Vibe Coding’ app creation is conceptually interesting, it may not easily establish itself in the actual market. According to analytics company Appfigures, similar attempts have been made but haven’t spread widely due to security concerns and maintenance burdens. CEO Pei also emphasized, “Security is a core issue for devices used by millions of users,” and pledged to strengthen security to minimize mistakes while making the tools easy for anyone to use.
With a global smartphone market share of less than 1%, Nothing is a small startup compared to giant smartphone manufacturers like Google, Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi, and OnePlus. However, Pei sees this as an opportunity. He said, “We are creating hardware that is based on AI usage” and believes that successes in smartphones could be expanded to other devices.
Nothing has chosen a strategy that differentiates itself from large corporations. Instead of directly competing with giant companies that already have stable ecosystems, the plan is to strengthen AI-specific experiences in niche markets to expand their presence.
Currently, Nothing provides Playground and other AI tools for free. There are no immediate plans to introduce a paid model. The company stated, “Our priority now is to discover developers who can make valuable contributions and foster a vibrant community, rather than focusing on profits.”
An environment where anyone can easily create and share apps using AI has the potential to change the paradigm of smartphone software in the long run. However, unless challenges such as security, maintenance, and user trust are addressed, it may remain just another ‘experimental attempt’.
Nothing’s endeavor is interpreted as an attempt by a ‘small but fast-moving’ company to disrupt the market using AI as a weapon. It remains to be seen whether the startup’s innovative experiments will create new trends in the smartphone market while large companies focus on stability and maintaining existing ecosystems.