Nothing Phone (3) to get Android 16 in days, but there's a catch

The Nothing Phone (3) was launched on 1 July, resulting in a new flagship device.

It launched on Android 15 with Nothing OS 3.5, but at launch, Carl Pei announced that Android 16 and Nothing OS 4.0 would be coming "later this autumn". Well, it seems like we're at the start of that process, according to the latest statement from the company.

Nothing has shared a community post outlining that the Nothing OS 4.0 and Android 16 roll-out is about to begin. The catch is that this is the start of the closed beta, as the software is still in development.

Unlike some schemes you don't have to be a registered developer, but you do have to sign-up to take part.

As this is a closed beta, you should expect that there will be some parts that aren't finalised and the performance of your phone may suffer as a result. It's also only open to owners of the Phone (3), which might narrow down the pool a little – after all, if it's your brand new shiny phone, do you really want to move to unstable software?

Nothing says that the closed beta will focus on Android 16's "native features" while also laying the foundation for "a more cohesive UI moving forward".

If you do want to take part, you have until 3 August to sign up and need to be involved in the process through August and early September. That also gives us a clue as to when the public betas might appear, as that's likely to follow after that date in early September.

What will Android 16 bring to Nothing OS?

At the moment, details are light on exactly what Nothing Phone owners will gain from Android 16. Nothing hasn't explicitly said what new features will appear in the phone with Nothing OS 4.0, and Android 16 wasn't really noted for customer-facing features.

It's likely that this part of the beta process will focus on many of the background changes that came with the latest Android, including a range of security and accessibility features that you might not immediately notice.

The big change that's expected with Android 16 is its new design language – Material 3 Expressive – but even Pixel phones don't yet have that. Considering the bold approach that Nothing takes to design, it might be that little of the new design language makes it into Nothing OS.

For now, this is really a case of signing up if you're happy to play a part (and have another phone you can rely on should the worst happen), while we all wait for the public beta to arrive in the next month or so.