Nothing phones are known for their stylish looks and smooth performance, and while some people may think Nothing OS is “barebones” or “stock Android,” there are a ton of amazing features waiting for you to find.
I’ve been using the Nothing Phone 4a Pro for the past few weeks and have unearthed tons of features that you’re absolutely going to want to check out. Whether you’re new to Nothing Phones or have been using them for years, Nothing has been doing a ton of new stuff lately and has debuted several unique features on the Phone 4a Pro that you definitely haven’t used before.
Article continues below
Make some Essential Space
Essential Space debuted last year with the Nothing Phone 3a series, including the Essential Key on the side of the phone. This year, the Essential Key has been moved to the left side, which is a better overall design, as I often confused the Essential Key and the power button on Nothing’s 2025 phones.
When the keyboard is not on screen, pressing and holding the Essential Key will take a screenshot and allow you to make a note about what’s on screen. If your keyboard is on screen, pressing and holding the Essential Key will involve Essential Voice, which you can read about below. Once you’ve captured a screenshot with the Essential Key, tapping the yellow arrow will then send the screenshot (and any notes you made) to Essential Space for organization.
Double-clicking the Essential Key opens Essential Space, a catch-all for your memories and notes throughout the day. Essential Space will automatically analyze the contents of anything sent to it, and you can search for anything via the hourglass icon in the bottom right. It’s a great way to keep track of everyday thoughts and moments, complete with a clever event section that automatically parses any events captured in a screenshot.
Essential Voice to the rescue
Whenever the keyboard is on your phone’s screen, pressing and holding the Essential Key on the left side of the phone will begin an Essential Voice recording. Essential Voice is designed to be a natural language voice dictation suite, meaning you can press and hold the key, then speak your mind for as long as you want without worrying about it turning all your “ums” and “uhs” into text.
I went hands-on with Essential Voice ahead of the feature’s official launch and was impressed with how well it worked. It needs internet connectivity to function, so you can’t use it offline, but Nothing’s AI-powered voice-to-text feature works better than any other one I’ve tried, including Google’s own version that’s built into Android.
To use Essential Voice, you need to have the keyboard on screen. Just tap anywhere you want to type, then press and hold the Essential Key on the side of the phone. As you’re holding it, a yellow icon will appear on screen (pictured above) showing that your voice is being recorded. Keep the button held for as long as you want to talk, and let go when you’re done.
At that point, the yellow icon will change, showing that the message is being transcribed, and your text will appear the moment it’s done. Alternatively, you can tap the Essential Voice button on the bottom left of the keyboard, speak what you want, then tap it again to stop recording.
Welcome to the Playground
Nothing Playground is one of the most unique features I’ve seen a smartphone company do in a while. In essence, Nothing is attempting to redefine the homescreen by replacing traditional widgets with ones you (and the community) build to serve a bespoke purpose. This new generation of widgets is called Essential Apps.
Nothing Playground (access it here) is the place where Essential Apps live. I can certainly relate to being annoyed by the widgets offered by certain apps, and now it’s easy to build your own widget with zero coding knowledge.
To get started, head to the Essential Apps builder. Tap the plus button to start a new app, then write your app idea in the box provided. Nothing AI will take the reins from there, creating a tiny app that aims to do exactly what you need and nothing more. After it makes a version of the app, you can tell it to modify the app any way you want, or just start over from scratch. It’s easy to make small changes and even revert them if you don’t like them.
Once you’ve built an app and are happy with it, adding it to your homescreen is simple. Just publish the app using the publish button in the Essential Apps builder, then head to your phone’s homescreen and follow these instructions:
1. Long-press on any blank area of the home screen, then tap Widgets on the pop-up menu.
2. Swipe over to the leftmost tab, which contains Essential Apps.
3. Tap the Essential App you want to add to your homescreen.
4. Tap Explore more to see all the apps the community has built.
Get hip with the Glyph
The Glyph Interface has been one of the key defining features of Nothing’s phone designs over the years, but the shape and function have changed with each generation. This year’s Glyph Interface is an evolved version of the Glyph Matrix “display” that debuted with the Nothing Phone 3, and it’s substantially more powerful than the simple LED lights on the back of older Nothing Phones.
The Glyph Matrix is designed to give you glanceable information when your phone is turned over. Lots of people like to put their phones face down on a table when they sit, and the Matrix is a great way to still see things like notifications, phone calls, or other information without having to pick up your phone or turn the full screen on.
To get started, open system settings by finding settings in the app drawer, then tap Glyph Interface in the settings menu. Right at the top, you can control the brightness of the Glyph Matrix or even turn it off completely. Scrolling down gives you a bevy of options to choose from. I recommend focusing on these first:
Volume Indicator: The Glyph Matrix will give you a visual circular indicator of the volume level when pressing the volume buttons.
Glyph Timer: The Glyph Matrix turns into an hourglass that fills up as your timer counts down to zero.
Glyph Progress: The Glyph Matrix will display a progress bar that fills up as an event makes progress. My favorite use for this is calendar entries, as it’ll give you a quick visual indicator for how long a scheduled event has left.
These are all great little utilities, but the start of the show this time around is Glyph Toys. In the Glyph Interface menu, tap Flip to Glyph, then select Always-on Glyph Toy from the list. Turn the feature on by selecting the toggle at the top of the screen, then select one of the nifty toys from the list.
Nothing provides just four toys by default, but the Nothing brand is all about community, and that means folks have made tons of additional toys that you can easily add to your phone. Just tap that little hourglass icon in the top right, and you’ll be taken to the Glyph Toys section of Nothing Playground.
Glyph Toys are automatically sorted by the model phone you’re using, and sorting by things like popularity helps surface the more exciting or useful options. The Glyph Leveler might just be my favorite one, but you can find lots of other fun toys in Playground. Just tap the one you want, then hit install. These additional toys can usually be found in the phone’s quick toggles and are activated by placing the phone screen down to activate the Glyph Interface.
Nothing regularly updates and improves its phones, adds new features, and generally seems to be on the cutting edge of cool new AI toys for its phones. Stay tuned for more tips and tricks, and enjoy your Nothing Phone 4a Pro!
Whether you’re looking to rock pink, silver, or black, the metal unibody Nothing Phone 4a Pro stands out from the pack in the best of ways, with class-leading displays, battery life, unique software features, and more.