phone (1) will be a follow-up product to ear (1) wireless earphones, which were released last year.

Nothing's CEO and former OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei stated today during a live stream that the company's first smartphone will be released this summer. In addition to running Android, it will have a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU and be dubbed the phone (1). This was the phone Carl Pei was pictured holding up to Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, even though it was shrouded in a privacy-protecting case.

phone (1) will be a follow-up to ear (1) wireless earphones, which were released last year. Earlier reports indicated that the phone would include transparent design components similar to the company's earbuds, but a short teaser clip released today suggests that the phone has light strips embedded into its back.

However, Nothing is ready to discuss the product's specifications or pricing. Pei was even more evasive in an interview with The Verge before today's event when asked about the potential use of the light strips. It's possible that the notification light, which used to be a common feature on many Blackberry and Android phones, including some from OnePlus, is getting a makeover.

The CEO, on the other hand, is more open when it comes to software. This week, Nothing has begun to show off a few photos of the Android skin it expects to use on Phone 1 dubbed as Nothing OS. Pei is keen to emphasize the software's aesthetic, which very consciously fits up with the rest of Nothing's branding, despite the fact that the photos don't tell anything about what the software might be capable of. Nothing's dotted font dominates the interface, which is a sea of black, white, and red.

As Pei points out, many firms have large divisions separating the product team from the design team, which, in turn, works separately from the software and marketing teams. A single "vision" across the company's gadgets, he argues, would be a difficulty given that the startup already has design teams in China, the UK, and Sweden.

Additionally, Nothing OS launcher will be available in April for certain Android handsets to download and use. The skin's aim is to provide a smooth and speedy user experience free of bloatware and hefty system programs. The interface has a dot matrix design, with fonts, icons, and widgets that are consistent throughout the operating system.

Nothing's goal, according to Pei, is to produce goods with a uniquely concentrated design language spanning everything from hardware to software, such that they can never be confused with anything from another company. In a world of increasingly indistinguishable devices, it's a difficult task. Pei describes Dyson's designs as having the kind of originality he wants Nothing to mimic — pointing to the fact that Dyson's former design director, Adam Bates, recently joined Nothing as its design director.