Nothing Phone (1) Android 13 Update Won’t Happen Until Early 2023

Because of a rather ambiguous tweet, the Nothing Phone (1) was accused of being abandonware, as the company wouldn’t be able to support the device with timely updates. The reactions might have been exaggerated, but Carl Pei’s subsequent clarifications might not inspire confidence, either. Yes, the startup has released bug fixes and minor updates to improve the experience of its first phone. No, it won’t play the game of rushing to push the latest Android release out the door, especially when it comes at the expense of stability and usability.

In fact, the company’s founder and CEO revealed that the Android 13 rollout isn’t scheduled to happen until sometime in early 2023. That, however, only applies to its final stable release, with a beta happening before the year ends. Pei doesn’t offer any explanation for its pace — other than not rushing things unnecessarily — but some suspect it has something to do with the custom Glyph interface that Nothing is heavily investing in.

Nothing OS itself is pretty bare and sticks closely to the vanilla Android experience. That would have been great in terms of rolling out upgrades faster, just like how the old Nexus phones could get updates faster as well. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case here because of the Phone (1)’s signature feature, and only time will tell if it would really be worth the costs.