I just came across this announcement from Nothing Phone covering the beta launch of their AI-powered App Building tool:
The world is full of apps, but almost none of them are built around you. They’re designed for everyone, which often means they’re perfect for no one.
Essential Apps explores a different idea. What if your phone could create apps shaped exactly around your life? What if you could describe what you need and the app simply appears on your home screen, ready to use?
On the surface, it might feel like “just another” vibe-coding platform, a way for anyone to create apps without coding. But there’s an important nuance: Nothing isn’t a software company, it’s a hardware company. That means it controls a powerful distribution channel: every Nothing Phone, now over 7 million devices.
I’m excited about this new era where, with enough motivation, almost anyone can build almost any app. At the same time, I can’t help but wonder whether the big players in the phone industry will truly embrace it, or hold back to avoid disrupting their app marketplaces. For context, Apple made over $10B from US App Store commissions in 2024.
At Automattic, we’re experimenting with a similar idea: Telex, a platform where anyone can turn an idea into a WordPress block and embed it in their WordPress sites. Somehow related to the topic, this very site was built using AI tools.
I’m not sure how App creators, or, in the case of WordPress, Plugin and Theme developers, can adapt to this new era, but one thing is clear: things are going to change very fast.