In summary
- Nothing claimed demo photos taken by Phone (3)
- Proof emerges that they’re stock professional photos
- Company explains error in process
London-based tech company Nothing has been caught claiming that professionally shot stock photographs were taken by its Phone (3) smartphone.
An anonymous source has sent us (and a number of other publications) a screen grab taken from a Nothing Phone (3) demo unit being used in retail stores. This shot features a mosaic of five photographs, along with the claim that they were all taken by the Nothing community using the Phone (3)’s camera.
The source also sent through a series of links demonstrating that these images are actually lifted from the Stills stock photography website. It appears they were all taken by professional photographers.
The Verge has confirmed with one photographer that they were indeed responsible for one of the shost, and that it was taken in 2023 (the Nothing Phone (3) launched last month) using a device other than the Phone (3). This photographer also confirmed to the website that Nothing had purchased the license to use the image.
Android Authority confirmed that another of the photos was taken by a photographer named Roman Fox, who used a Fujifilm XH2s camera for the job back in 2023.
Anonymous
Nothing’s response
Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis has responded to this potentially damaging reveal over on X.
According the Evangelidis, this was an unfortunate case of the company mistakenly retaining placeholder images on their LDUs (demo units). These images were supposed to have been swapped out ahead of going live, but for whatever reason they weren’t.
“We are actively rectifying this and working with our promoters to ensure all LDUs reflect the latest version,” said Evangelidis.
“We are also investigating internally to make sure such an issue doesn’t happen again. This was an unfortunate oversight, and I want to emphasise that there was no ill intent.”
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
Image processing
All of which makes a certain amount of sense, though it seems a little odd to pay for the rights to professional images that are only going to be used as placeholders.
Evangelidis confirmed that the company used to simply grab sample images from older Nothing phones for its demo placeholders, but that somewhere along the line that process changed.
“There is no clear reason for stock imagery to be used in the first place,” he said. “As you can see from the comments section, photos captured with Phone (3) are far more striking than those stock images.”
We were moderately impressed with the Nothing Phone (3)’s camera set-up in our review, finding that ”In general, photos are impressively true to life, yet have just enough post-processing to make them easily shareable on social media or elsewhere.”