I tried Nothing's AI app builder — and ended up with a screaming tea timer

I’ve always thought it would be fun to make an app — you know, build something actually useful, either for myself or for the wider world. But when you’re starting from absolutely nothing, the barrier to entry can seem pretty high. I don’t know the first thing about Kotlin, Java, or Swift (and yes, I had to look up common app development languages to write that). So, I accepted that dedicating time to building an app probably wasn’t in my future.

That is, at least, until Nothing stepped in. Everyone’s favorite black-and-white, semi-transparent Android brand decided that apps should be as personal as a sense of style, and that meant putting the power of creation into everyone’s hands. It added a new section to its community-built Playground, dubbed Essential Apps, and I got an early chance to start building.

Here’s what I came up with.

Nothing’s app builder works surprisingly well

Essential Apps are, as I quickly came to understand them, just that — quick features that make your life easier without ever leaving your home screen. They’re not here to replace social media or eliminate the need for your banking app. Honestly, they’re more like widgets than full-fledged apps, but I’m not about to split hairs when I get to build them myself.

And yes, that last sentence is what’s really important here: Nothing’s Essential App Builder gives you the freedom to decide what apps you want to, well, build. Simply type out what you want to the very best of your ability, and then enter the rewarding (and tiring) stage of edits, refinements, and resubmissions.

When I finally got access to Nothing’s AI-powered tool, I decided to start with something simple — something I use every day. I decided I’d build a tea timer.

Why? Well, right now, my daily tea-making process is a mess. My clock app is loaded with short timers, ranging from two to six minutes, and I’ve forced myself to remember which one matches each type of tea. So, I sat down with the Essential App Builder and asked for an app that works as a tea timer, lets me adjust the steeping time by tea type (white, herbal, black, and so on), and gives me the correct boiling temperature for each one. Simple, right? Yes, it really was that simple.

When I got the first build of my app, though, I noticed an issue. Although almost everything looked good, the app was cutting off the bottom edge of both the timer and the brewing temperature, making the whole thing look a little cramped. I asked my Nothing Phone 3 to adjust that element, and my issues multiplied — as did the amount of time the Essential App Builder took to, well, build.

My simple little tea timer went through round after round of revision, swapping the temperature with a button, putting the timer inside a circle that blocked access to the start and reset buttons, and giving me a tea menu I couldn’t actually select from. Version two became version eight, which became version 15 before I knew it, and soon I was prompting myself in circles.

Eventually, though, I reached version 21 of my silly little tea timer and decided I was happy with it. I’d prompted and re-prompted the builder enough times that everything finally looked good, and I was ready to deploy my creation, which meant testing it on my very own Nothing Phone 3. I loaded it up, picked the shortest timer, and counted down the three agonizing minutes to see what would happen at the end of my steeping.

It worked perfectly — kind of. The timer showed 0:00, and the entire widget flashed black-and-white, just as I’d asked. Then, it screamed. It wasn’t a Wilhelm Scream but a pure, terrified yell, which I have to assume is Nothing’s answer to the alarm I’d asked for. If nothing else, I would certainly say it was alarming. But because I laughed so hard I cried, I deployed it as-is, scream and all — now I’m just waiting for it to be reviewed.

Nothing’s users are one creative bunch

I had initially decided I wanted to go into my Essential App adventure with a clean slate, and I’m glad I did. I didn’t want to be steered by the existing app library, no matter how creative they might be. But now that I’m waiting on my tea timer to be approved for public release, I figured it was a good time to start exploring.

At the very least, I have to give the Nothing community a ton of credit for creativity. I don’t necessarily think I need all of the top options — I don’t have much use for a Formula 1 schedule or a moon phase calendar — but there’s some clever stuff in there like a solar clock and a water reminder. As a runner, I can always be drinking more water. And, with how short our days still are in the mid-Atlantic, the solar clock has already come in clutch for helping me decide just how late in the day I can go for a run.

Of the existing library, though, one that really jumped out at me was a widget called Vista from a guy named Keith. It’s beautiful in its simplicity, populating your home screen with new works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection every 15 minutes. If you like one, tap it to see its name and who created it. Will it change your life in a massive way? Probably not, but it’ll give you an appreciation for famous works of art, and that’s pretty good too.

Always leading from the front, Nothing’s Carl Pei has a top submission on the Playground as well. It’s a simple widget called Big Eyes, which, yes, looks like a big pair of eyes. They blink at you every few seconds and react if you tap on the interface, but that’s about it. It’s a cute idea, even if it’s not exactly useful otherwise.

Personally, I still think my own idea is the best, but that’s how Essential Apps should be — they should be meaningful to your own needs rather than those of everyone else. Maybe Keith will get a lot of usage out of his art, and the big eyes will make Carl smile, just like my timer will give me a few minutes of zen… until it screams again.

It’s fun to be the first kid on the Playground

When my Essential App (hopefully) passes the review process, you’ll be able to download my tea timer right from the Nothing Playground. I can’t even explain how excited I am for that to happen, though I know it’ll come with some restrictions at first.

For starters, Nothing’s Essential Apps will only roll out to users with the Nothing Phone 3 — at least for now. The logic behind this makes sense; the Phone 3 is currently the most powerful in the lineup, but support will open up for other Nothing and CMF phones as the beta platform stabilizes.

Also, being one of the first kids on the Playground comes with its limitations. Right now, there aren’t many other apps to explore, and you can’t integrate all the services from your Nothing Phone into the Essential App Builder. At the moment, only your location, read-only calendar appointments, and contacts work reliably without manual code intervention. In the future, Nothing says that the Essential App Builder will support everything from your media library to calling and Bluetooth device access, making it a proper app-building platform.

And when that day eventually comes, it sounds like Nothing wants its Essential Apps to largely redefine how you interact with your phone. You’ll get used to using one of these tools to make a note, review a running training plan, or grab the news that matters to you rather than opening an app and getting lost in the scroll. For once, I actually think it will be an exciting way to revamp Android and make it feel more like the cover screen of a flip phone — I have ideas about what to build and how it will make my life easier.

Until then, you can find me building (and breaking) more Essential Apps as I try to make the apps and widgets I really want. Hopefully with less screaming.