Phone 3a: Nothing removes "Lock Glimpse" feature after user criticism
Criticism helps: London-based tech startup Nothing is removing the "Lock Glimpse" feature from the Phone 3a models with an update.
"Out of Glimpse": Less advertising on the Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro.
(Image: heise medien)
The Nothing Phones 3a, 3a Pro, and 3a Lite received advertising on the lock screen and bloatware with the introduction of Nothing OS 4.0 based on Android 16 in November. Following massive criticism, the manufacturer is now backing down further.
Lock Glimpse disappears from more expensive 3a models
Nothing will remove the “Lock Glimpse” feature from the more expensive budget models 3a and 3a Pro, writes Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis in an update to the blog post from October 2025, in which Nothing announced the feature.
“Lock Glimpse” displays changing wallpapers on the lock screen for users. The tool also plays “useful content,” which is ultimately advertising.
Users can now also remove the pre-installed bloatware from Meta from the Nothing Phone 3a Lite. To achieve this, it is sufficient to deactivate one of the three applications: Meta App Installer, Meta App Manager, or Meta Service App. After deactivating one of these apps, the smartphone prompts for a restart, after which “all Meta services will be removed from the system partition.” “If you deactivate one of them, the others will be removed automatically,” Nothing explains.
Nothing points out that after a factory reset of the smartphone, the Meta services will be reinstalled as part of the original system image – they can be removed again using the same steps.
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Lock Glimpse could return
According to Nothing, the December update integrated a new app recommendation feature for the Nothing Phone (a) series and CMF smartphones into the operating system. It is part of the setup process and appears during the initial setup of the device “or after certain software updates when the setup flows are triggered again.” If you are not interested, you can close the feature by swiping left. After setup, you can also turn off the feature by deactivating the system app “App Services.”
However, the company has left the discussion about advertising on smartphones open, noting that “Lock Glimpse” might return in the future. For this to happen, it would need to be improved so that it appears less intrusive and more thoughtful.
According to the manufacturer, the “Lock Glimpse” feature will remain pre-installed on the inexpensive Nothing Phone 3a Lite and CMF models. Nothing explains that for smartphones available “at a lower price,” “certain compromises apply.” However, a future update should offer users of the Phone 3a Lite the option to uninstall Lock Glimpse. After all, Lock Glimpse is deactivated by default on the cheaper models.
(afl)
