About a month ago, the Nothing Phone (1) received its first beta of Nothing OS 1.5, based on Android 13. Today, the company is sending out the second beta build of Android 13 to the Nothing Phone (1) units enrolled in the beta testing. This is apparently four days ahead of schedule, according to Nothing CEO Carl Pei.
The new build includes new minimalist wallpapers, customizable lock screen shortcut buttons, a new “handcrafted glyph ringtone and notification soundpack of a slightly different style”, an improved Quick Settings panel for networking which allows quickly switching data usage when using dual SIMs, smoother animations when turning on or off the screen, an enhanced auto brightness algorithm, improved Camera app UI and animations, and improved battery life.
The system stability should have increased as well, and bugs were liberally fixed, although they’re not individually outlined. The full Nothing X app is now built into the OS, and finally the pop-up view is back with “some interaction improvements”.
The new release arrives over-the-air as a 127MB download. It’s unclear when the final, stable build of Nothing OS 1.5 will roll out to all devices out there. Seeing as how so far the beta update cadence has been one per month, if there is going to be another beta, expect that to drop around the middle of February. Nothing definitely seems to be taking its time here.
