Nothing starts opening up its Android 13 beta for the Phone 1

Nothing’s Android 13 update for the Nothing Phone 1 has started rolling out in open beta, the company announced today. The update is version 1.5 of the company’s Nothing OS Android skin and contains unique additions like an all-new Nothing-themed weather app alongside Android 13 features like the ability to set language options on a per-app basis and a new QR code scanner in quick settings. Its official release is scheduled for early next year.

In an interview with Android Authority, Nothing CEO Carl Pei shed some light on why its Android 13 update has taken so long to release. Apparently, the Phone 1 originally launched with software developed by an outsourced team from another Android phone manufacturer of around 400 engineers. But in the months since, Nothing has staffed up its internal team to around 100 engineers, who’ve updated Nothing OS to use the company’s in-house code for its version 1.5 release. 

“We secretly swapped in our in-house code for the old codebase from the outsourced OEM. That’s allowed us to make the system smoother and more stable,” Pei tells Android Authority. One of the improvements Nothing is claiming for this release is up to 50 percent faster app loading speeds, seemingly one of the major benefits of the new in-house code.

Anyone interested in trying out the beta can sign up via the link in Nothing’s tweet here. It’s a gradual release, meaning the beta will be slowly rolling out over the coming days and weeks. For a full list of Nothing OS 1.5’s features, check out Nothing’s release notes.