Nothing Essential Apps Builder Goes on Beta for the Phone (3)

Nothing has officially announced the Beta phase for Essential Apps, an AI-powered platform designed to let users generate custom mini-applications using simple text prompts. Following a limited Alpha release in 2025, the tool is now expanding to a broader group of users in the form of a beta release. 

Nothing brings Text-to-App Creation to Essential Playground

Nothing has announced via a community post that it's testing the ability to create mini widget apps via just text in the Playground app. The core of the experience lives inside Playground, which is a web-based hub where users can describe the app in English, and the tool will construct the widget.

The app can then be installed directly on the phone's home screen with a single tap. It's worth noting that the builder is currently in Beta and has a waitlist. It's also currently exclusive to the Nothing Phone (3).

In this Beta stage, Essential Apps can utilise three key Android permissions – Location, Calendar and Contacts. It's worth noting that the Calendar permission is read-only for now. Users can leverage these permissions to create widget tools like a countdown to a date and quick-dial widgets.

The builder supports 2x2 and 4x2 widgets. Additionally, Nothing claims that the system allows for iterative updates to apps where users can tweak specific parts without resetting the entire project. Future releases of the app are expected to unlock deeper hardware access with more permissions and widget sizes.

As for its general availability, the app is expected to open to more users later in 2026. Phones running Nothing OS 4.0, including CMF phones, should get support as the beta progresses. We will be keeping close tabs on Nothing Playground, so stay tuned.