Nothing says AI can organize your app drawer, but it's just simple categories

I’m all for AI-powered features that make life better. I was happy when Apple introduced the ability to prioritize notifications, and I’ve relied on Google’s exclusive Pixel calling features for several years now. However, just because AI can be helpful doesn’t mean it needs to be everywhere. Sometimes, we should just let our smartphones do smart things. So, when I set up my Nothing Phone 3a for the first time and opened my app drawer, it left me shaking my head.

If everything is AI, then nothing is

For what it’s worth, I generally like Nothing OS. I like that it sticks close to a stock Android experience but adds enough customization through clever widgets and the simple black-and-white color scheme to feel completely unique. I even like Nothing’s new Essential Space, an AI-powered journal that you can access from a hardware button on the Phone 3a and 3a Pro.

And yet, for every clever feature that Nothing has come up with, it’s just as comfortable with slapping AI on something else that, well, isn’t and calling it a day. When I first opened the app drawer on my Nothing Phone 3a, it came sorted alphabetically, just like if I were using a Google Pixel. It’s the organization I’m used to and typically what I prefer, but Nothing also prompted me to try its Smart App Drawer to “Leverage the power of AI to support the categorization of your apps.”

As a phone reviewer willing to try anything twice, I opted in. I set up the Smart App Drawer on my Phone 3a Pro, hoping that it would put my apps into categories and automatically suggest the ones I used almost daily. To an extent, it did — I immediately got folders marked Utilities, Productivity, Social, and several more, and each was populated with just the right mix of apps. However, as I swiped through Nothing’s straightforward organizations, I realized something else — I’ve been using an app drawer like this for years.

To me, Nothing’s Smart App Drawer feels almost exactly like an Android-flavored version of Apple’s App Library, a feature that’s been around since iOS 14 launched in 2020. And, if we know anything about Apple, we know that it likes to take credit for reinventing even the simplest of Android features. We also know that it organizes the apps in its App Library based on their categories in the App Store, so I’d be willing to bet that Nothing is doing the same thing with the Play Store.

Unless we want to give Apple credit for winning the AI race two years before Nothing started making phones, I don’t think we need to call the Smart App Drawer something it’s not. Is it smart? Sure. Is it AI? I don’t really think so.