Nothing has launched the Nothing Launcher in beta for select Android phones today. You can try out the launcher on Samsung Galaxy S21, S22, Google Pixel 5 & higher, with OnePlus support slated to come soon. In this article, we have explained how you can try out the Nothing launcher on any phone right now.
Install Nothing Launcher On Any Phone (2022)
Download Nothing Launcher APK
1. Copy Nothing Launcher’s Play Store listing link (visit) and open the APKPure website (visit) to generate the XAPK file. Click the Search icon at the top-right corner of the screen and paste the launcher’s link to the search box.
2. When the APKPure listing of Nothing Launcher appears, click on the “Download XAPK” button to download the xapk file.
Install Nothing Launcher on Your Phone
1. Download APKMirror Installer from Play Store (visit). Open the app and select the “Browse files” option.
2. Then, navigate to the xapk file in the Downloads folder. Tap on the Nothing Launcher xapk file and choose “Install package”. Once APKMirror Installer loads the package, press “Install app” to install Nothing Launcher on your phone.
2. When the app installation prompt appears, tap on “Install” to complete the process. You have successfully installed Nothing Launcher. However, don’t open the app just yet. Tapping the “Open app” icon either resulted in crashes or no response in our testing. Instead, follow the steps below to set Nothing Launcher as your phone’s default launcher.
Set Nothing Launcher as the Default Launcher
1. Open the Settings app of your phone and navigate to Apps -> Default apps.
2. Tap on “Home app” and select “Nothing Launcher” as the default launcher. Swipe up or press the home button, and you will see Nothing Launcher on your phone.
Nothing Launcher: Quick First Impressions
Now that we have gone through the steps involved in installing Nothing Launcher, let’s discuss if you should install the launcher. In its blog post, Nothing highlights three features for the launcher — Nothing Wallpaper & Style, Bespoke Clock & Weather widgets, and Max Icons and Max Folder. Let me get to each one of them.
First up, we have the default wallpaper. As someone who has an objectively better taste in wallpapers, I’m not a huge fan of the default wallpaper Nothing is shipping here. In fact, I thought that the launcher glitched when I first saw it. Besides, it looks nothing like the one we saw alongside the Nothing phone announcement. Since wallpaper is a subjective preference, I will let this slide.
Then we have the clock and weather widgets. Nothing offers a total of three widgets right now — Analog, Digital, and Weather. Notably, the Digital widget also has a transparent version, giving the launcher a minimal look. The other widgets look good too. Unless you are a critical Android widgets enthusiast, there’s nothing to dislike about the widgets Nothing is offering here.
And that brings me to the last one — Max Icons and Max Folder. According to Nothing, this is a new experience where you can enlarge your favorite apps and folders so that they are most visible. This might just be the biggest gimmick anyone has tried to pull off in the recent past. The enlarged versions look gigantic and you can’t adjust the exact size. Needless to say, it takes up a lot of space on the home screen too.
Other than these, Nothing is offering two wallpapers, one with an abstract puppy and another with an abstract face. You also get a ringtone, notification tone, and an alarm tune, all closely resembling what a Morse code distress signal would sound like.
To be clear, I’ve nothing against Nothing. It’s just that this is yet another launcher that doesn’t manage to stand out in an ocean of Android launchers (check out for yourself). Since the launcher is still in beta, we will have to wait to see if Nothing manages to bring unique features in the future. Meanwhile, try out the launcher and let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Abubakar Mohammed
