Nothing's "AirDrop" app returns after a short absence – but there's a catch

Last week, Nothing announced a transfer tool called Warp, which allows the transfer of files, images, copied text or links between devices. It leverages Google Drive allowing users signed into a Google Account to essentially share information with themselves across devices.

It was announced on the Nothing Forum, inviting users to install a browser extension and then install an app. As soon as it launched, it was pulled.

Nothing provided an update, saying: "Nothing Warp was temporarily withdrawn to fine-tune the product following its initial release. The app is built on Google's infrastructure and handles no user data. There are no security or privacy concerns."

Well now it's back, with Nothing inviting you to install a Chrome extension which handles the PC side of the operation, but for the phone part, you'll need to sideload the app on your Android phone, which is available from Nothing directly.

That's currently not a challenge, once you've granted the various permissions on your phone. You'll then be invited to sign into both halves with a Google account to begin sharing.

What is Nothing Warp?

Nothing Warp is a simple tool. On a PC, just right click on the content you want to share and select the "Nothing Warp" option. For those who spend most of their time in a desktop browser and want to copy text, or a webpage or an online image, it works well enough. Within Chrome, just select it, right click and the option is there.

For those wanting to share files, you'll have to open the browser extension and click upload. Note that this can be pretty slow – if you've synced files to Google Drive before, you'll know how slow it can be with big files.

On a phone, because it's using a proper app, things are simpler, as Nothing Warp gets added to the share menu across the whole device. Just select it and off it goes.

In reality, Nothing Warp is great for lightweight copy and paste functions or sharing URLs, but if you want to share content saved on your phone, you can already do that through Google Drive and other Google properties, like Photos, already easily accessed through a browser.

It's an interesting tool and you can tell it was designed to address a set of demands that the Nothing team encountered, rather than it being a proper multi-platform file sharing tool.

Exactly why it was pulled, we don't know, but now it's back if you want to try it.