Nothing’s first phone with third-party bloatware has arrived, with the new Nothing Phone (3a) Lite shipping out of the box with Instagram and Facebook pre-installed.
Nothing OS has long been praised for its clean take on Android that, like Pixel, is generally free of third-party bloatware. But that’s officially changing.
The Nothing Phone (3a) Lite is the company’s first smartphone to include pre-installed third-party apps, and that starts with just three apps – TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.
Out of the box on Phone (3a) Lite, you’ll see these apps installed, though our unit notably omitted TikTok. We set up our Phone (3a) Lite without restoring a backup and, alongside Nothing’s apps and Google’s, Instagram and Facebook were both installed. Those are the only user-facing apps pre-installed on the device, but the full list includes:
- TikTok
- Meta App Installer
- Meta App Manager
- Meta Services
These apps were also pre-installed on some OnePlus devices, with the three other apps listed being used to provide updates for Instagram and Facebook. While both Instagram and Facebook (and TikTok) can be uninstalled, the other three cannot be removed; they can only be disabled.
The reasoning for this is obvious, money. As Nothing itself mentioned, pre-installing apps helps to offset the cost of the hardware, effectively subsidizing the device. Funny enough, Nothing published a video with CEO Carl Pei discussing this practice in regards to Samsung just a month ago, presumably as Nothing was itself working on a deal with Meta to pre-install these apps.
Nothing has said that this practice will only happen on devices that aren’t considered “flagship.”
Beyond pre-installed apps, Nothing Phone (3a) Lite also ships with “Lock Glimpse” enabled by default, a feature that hijacks the lock screen with automatically changing wallpapers that include a link to open an online article related to the wallpaper. The articles are powered by “Vilykke,” cannot be shared, and seem to have no online presence outside of these links. The articles are completely random, too, and seem to exist almost solely to drive ad impressions.
This can be disabled in the Settings menu.
What do you think of this change?
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