April Fool’s Trick: Nothing beats smartphone makers with another (1) phone

Nothing, the tech company best known for its association with Carl Pei, played a seemingly harmless and reasonably understandable April Fool’s stunt. On Twitter, the company posted a photo of what it says is “Another (1) phone.”Stylized as what he calls his own phone, it’s certainly a bit ironic to note how the smartphone maker that recently introduced the Android phone decided to dig into…Android phones.

It’s not all from Nothing

The company’s Twitter message reads: “Say hello to Just Another (1). You have seen such a phone before. Experience monotony from edge to edge. It’s inspiringly boring. Completely unoriginal. And just like everything else. You’ll get bored soon.

While such sentiments should largely be in line with common perceptions surrounding the global smartphone industry, it’s not all from nothing. Careful observers would do well to notice the shortened URL written over the fake smartphone screen in the Nothing trick.

Copying and clicking on the link should take you to a YouTube video, where all the information about this giveaway is in the video description. Announcing a contest purely based on boredom, Nothing says, “To thank you for taking the time to search our fake phone to find this link, we’re giving you a chance to win a Nothing (1) phone when we run it with this summer.. Tell us about the most boring tech product you’ve ever seen and your social media address below. The winner will be announced April 4th. Congratulations on the first of April!”

The original trick of the company is aimed at increasing the number of homologations in the smartphone industry. With a standardized set of experiences in terms of quality and display types, camera features, and most importantly overall smartphone design, an industry-wide standard layout is available to everyone.

Looking ahead, Nothing claims that its version of an Android smartphone stands out. The company touted its software widget offering as a key way to differentiate between itself and its competitors, and stated that overall design differences should play a big role in separating a brand from others.