Nothing Phone founder Carl Pei: How they're aiming to take on Apple (hint, without apps)

I've been fascinated with the concept of the Nothing (phone) ever since the firm launched their devices and I've been following them ever since.

A recent video I came across on LinkedIn and then on TikTok features the company's founder discussing his vision of (a phone) operating system that doesn't use or rely upon apps.

Whilst that's quite difficult to achieve in today's app-obsessed paradigm, I can very much imagine us moving closer to that as time goes on.

If you think back a decade or so to the introduction of "digital", I remember the oppressive cognitive load of having to load up internet banking when the login process took 30 seconds, instead of 3 seconds via mobile app.

Who would ever bother using Internet Banking?

It was just too annoying. Too time-consuming, especially when mobile apps got Touch ID and then Face ID. The speed of login and authentication was amazing.

Interestingly, I'm there - now - when it comes to apps.

I am routinely finding myself utterly frustrated at having to tap-tap-tap through the app designer's (often ridiculous) user interfaces to complete the one thing I want to get done.

Instead, increasingly, I want to just say it.

Transfer 3k from HSBC to Monzo.

I don't want to jump through the stupid hoops.

Just get it done.

The cognitive load – the impatience – is immensely frustrating.

The process of transferring some cash from one account to another, for example, is utterly unwieldy:

1. Pull down the iPhone screen to type "HSBC" and select the app
2. Wait for the app to do it's load process and all the jazz that HSBC requires.
3. Authenticate.
4. Wait for the screen to show.
   1. Note: It really is Wait, Wait, Wait. It's not immediate. I am actually burning brain cells waiting.
5. Tap on the relevant account.
6. Tap transfer etc-etc-etc-etc.
7. Go through the SAME flipping process, every time, to transfer money from that account to this account.
8. Wait for the thing to confirm. Admittedly that is more or less instant.

I'm not having a go at HSBC. It's a pretty fast app. But all bank apps are like this.

What I find frustrating is that I know what I want to get done, but I don't expect – nowadays, with the technology we've collectively got – to have to go through these laborious processes.

On the face of it, yes, it's a ridiculous complaint. It's perhaps a 30-40-second process to make that bank transfer.

But speaking it would be much faster.

It's the same when it comes to ordering pizza or a bazillion other things that we all have

Thinking would be even better, but... you know... I'm not too sure about an Elon Musk brain implant yet.

So I'll settle for being able to tell my Conversational AI (agent?) to transfer money, so I can do the thing I need to do.

I am therefore with Carl and the Nothing team. Bring on the Conversational interface.

Enough of the app-for-everything ecosystem!

Here's Carl's TikTok video on the topic: