This morning, Nothing began rolling out the first Nothing OS 4.0 beta build to its mid-range Phone 3a series. While that would normally be something to celebrate, owners of those devices who grabbed the update noticed something new that certainly looked like pre-installed, potentially ad-filled bloatware. Various forums filled up with questions, wondering why Nothing would do something so greasy to its clean builds of Android and divert from its minimal approach to software.
As conspiracies theories and anger began to spread, Nothing did the right thing and released a statement with a full explanation. As it turns out, they did indeed include a new piece of bloatware in Nothing OS 4.0 beta on the Phone 3a because this is a new revenue stream they plan to pursue going forward on non-flagship phones.
The new feature in Nothing OS 4.0 that caught everyones attention is called “Lock Glimpse” and it’s a lock screen wallpaper app that had its own terms and conditions and clearly looked like a piece of adware disguised as a wallpaper feature. Sleuths on reddit think it might even be a version of Glance, which is a well-known advertising platform that can take over your lock screen.
This “Lock Glimpse” feature is off by default, but if you turn it on, you can swipe between wallpapers, see fresh wallpapers at anytime, customize the categories it shows, etc. I don’t believe that it shows advertisements at this time, but look, where else do we think an app like this is going? For one, it’s likely collecting some data (Nothing says “no personal data is shared.”), plus some of the examples I’ve seen look oddly like AI slop.
In the explanation from Nothing, they straight-up admit that they need to add apps and services like this to phones to bring in software-based revenue streams. They suggest that everyone else does it, specifically calling out Samsung, so they will as well. By moving in this direction, they hope to find “sustainable revenue models” that will allow them to avoid passing on costs to you.
Going forward, the plan is is to add “carefully considered” third-party apps and services to non-flagship devices that they won’t “don’t disrupt the Nothing OS experience.” This could be pre-loaded apps like Instagram or like this Lock Glimpse thing.
So, there you have it. Nothing is indeed going to add bloatware to devices, some of you might just use anyway and some of it you might ignore. At least for now, they are going to try and include stuff that won’t get in the way, that you could use if you want or disable, that sort of thing.
Would love to hear some thoughts from you.
The full Nothing statement can be read here.
Read the original post: Nothing Adding Bloatware to Phones Because It Wants the Revenue Stream
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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