Beta testers can access Nothing’s Essential Apps Builder in the Playground hub on the Nothing Phone 3.
Nothing Phone 3 will be the first model to get the beta access to the Essential Apps Builder
Nothing unveiled its new Essential Suite of AI tools in September 2025. Claiming it to be a step towards building an AI native operating system, the UK-based smartphone maker also launched the Essential Apps Builder as part of the suite of AI tools. Earlier, the Essential Apps Builder, found in the tech firm's Playground hub, was only available in the early Alpha version as an internal and limited community release. Now, the Carl Pei-led company has announced that it has started rolling out the beta version of the Essential Apps Builder, which will allow users to build personalised apps using natural language.
In a community post on Tuesday, the London-based smartphone maker announced that its Essential Apps Builder is now rolling out to a wider user base in beta. The functionality, available in the Playground hub, is initially rolling out to the Nothing Phone 3. Rolling out in batches, users have to register to enter the waitlist for the beta version of the Essential Apps Builder.
The stable release is planned for later this year. It will be accompanied by the Remixing Apps functionality, which will also be present in the Playground hub. Along with entering the beta testing phase, the company has also made publishing and updating apps “easier to understand” by clearly labelling the live apps, draft apps, and the changes made. Moreover, the Essential Apps Builder now supports dark mode.
While the Essential Apps Builder is currently exclusively available on the Nothing Phone 3, the tech firm plans to release the same to other Nothing and CMF devices running Nothing OS 4.0 and later versions after the “beta stabilises”.
For now, Nothing's new Essential Apps Builder requires a user to provide access to the phone's location, calendar (read only), and Contacts. Hence, the app builder is presently only capable of creating “location-based reminders, agenda views, meeting countdowns and one-tap contact widgets”.
The company claims that “more capabilities” will soon be rolled out, including camera and microphone access, network fetching, notifications, vibration, calling, and Bluetooth. Additionally, the company said that a late February OS update will introduce activity recognition, usage statistics, sensor data, and system Weather API to the app builder.
This comes months after the smartphone maker introduced its Essential Suite of AI tools in September 2025. Earlier, only the Alpha version of the Essential Apps Builder was available to internal and select community members. As previously mentioned, Nothing's app builder allows users to create apps through vibe coding, which means that it recognises natural language prompts to generate apps and widgets.
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