Nothing launches controversial Look Glimpse feature and is forced to release a statement early
Nothing, maker of Nothing phones and devices, has made available the next iteration of its operating system for Nothing Phone 3a series devices. It gives users a glimpse of things to come, including Android 16 on their devices.
While the core focus of the update is Android 16, some new features are also being tested. One of them is called Look Glimpse, and it has recently blown up on social media sites like X or Reddit.
Put simply, Look Glimpse is a feature that pushes wallpapers to the device's lockscreen. Nothing describes the feature in the following way: "Lock Glimpse brings fresh, high-quality wallpapers to your lock screen, curated to your taste across nine categories. It can also surface timely updates and useful content, designed to enhance your experience, not distract you."
Nothing avoids the term advertisement, but this appears to be a big part of the feature. Windows users, and many others, have experienced similar features in the past when companies like Microsoft started to display ads on the Windows lockscreen.
Nothing reacted to the brewing storm with a post on the community forum. There, the company explained its motivation behind the feature. More importantly, it stated that Look Glimpse was disabled by default on Nothing Phone 3a Series devices. Also, the company promised to release a future update that would allow users to display their photos on the lockscreen instead.
Why is Nothing introducing the feature then? According to the post, because of thin margins and the need to increase revenue.
It also announced a second change coming to non-flagship devices that might also alienate part of the customer base. Nothing plans to push "a carefully considered selection of third-party partner apps and services" on these devices. For a company that pushed the non-bloatware approach when it launched its devices, it is a major deviation from that.
Nothing promises that these apps and services "don't disrupt the Nothing OS experience" and that they are installed by most users anyway on the first day of usage. The only example that Nothing gives is the app Instagram, which is developed by Meta.
The company promises to "keep partner apps minimal and easy to remove", and that it will remain "upfront about what's pre-installed and why". Also, users will retain full control over Look Glimpse and comparable features.
Closing Words
It remains to be seen how this will evolve once the final version of the new operating system version launches. Opt-in is certainly the right approach to anything that involves advertisement or user privacy. Most phones and devices come with preinstalled apps from third-party companies as well, but it is clear why owners of a phone that did not are not exactly happy about the development.
Now You: Which mobile phone do you use currently and why? Do you mind the preinstallation of third-party apps on your devices? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
@tom42,
You’ve got your sums wrong I’m afraid. According to Bloomberg News, quote: “Nothing doubled its annual revenue to more than $500 million and recently crossed $1 billion in lifetime sales”, unquote. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-16/phone-startup-nothing-raises-funding-crosses-1-billion-in-lifetime-sales
Bearing in mind that investors, generally speaking aren’t interested in investing in businesses which are going down the tubes is evidence enough that Nothing is an ongoing concern with great potential whichever way you look at it.
This is not new. Motorola calls it “Glance” and they keep re-enabling it without asking or informing me.
I have auto-updates disabled on my phone (too) and when I manually do updates, I say do them because android ‘checks’ whenever it likes no matter what you want, I carefully check the list for unwanted apps and then remove, or more likely disable because I can’t remove them without rooting my phone, the ones I don’t want then recheck for updates to make sure they are missing from the list before I proceed
It’s insane and scary when looking at what kinds of apps in android wanting to connect with the internet.
Installing a firewall is a good start, enable the notifications and watch the phone wanting to phone home all the time.
Here’s one firewall for android.
https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard
I am currently looking to replace 2 phones, this company was on my sohrt list. Thank you for this article, I have removed them from the list.
Yet another company making the suicidal and erroneous mistake of assuming that consumers have to accept whatever they shove at them.
It’s a 5 year old company that has never turned a profit, what would you like them to do?