It’s about time Nothing considers developing a native suite of core telephony apps—Dialer, Phone, Contacts, and SMS—tailored specifically for Nothing OS. While AOSP and third-party alternatives exist, they lack the cohesive design language and optimization that could reflect the unique NOS UX/UI philosophy.
Current reliance on Google’s communication apps introduces potential privacy trade-offs. Despite permissions being requested, a significant amount of user interaction data is still routed through Google services. For users focused on data sovereignty and minimal telemetry, this is increasingly problematic.
From a development standpoint, building lightweight, privacy-respecting alternatives wouldn’t be a massive lift. Leveraging AOSP as a base, with Nothing’s design layer and minor feature enhancements, could make MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) of these apps feasible within 4–8 weeks of dev time, depending on team size and scope.
Given that Nothing OS has been evolving for over three years, the addition of first-party communication tools would not only strengthen ecosystem independence but also enhance brand identity. Hopefully, someone on the NOS dev team picks this up—it’s a solid opportunity to bring functional depth and originality to the OS.
