OnePlus takes a page from Nothing with its newest feature

Android Authority

6 days ago

TL;DR The upcoming OnePlus 13s replaces the traditional Alert Slider with a customizable hardware button called the Plus Key.
Amongst other remappable functions, this key launches AI Plus Mind, which uses contextual intelligence to save and organize screen content within a dedicated Mind Space.
While similar to Nothing's Essential Key and Essential Space, OnePlus offers greater flexibility through button remapping and gesture controls.
These days, Android flagships are more than just specifications, with companies being very bullish on AI features and their potential to improve the conventional phone experiences. OnePlus had already jumped on the AI bandwagon with features like AI Eraser and AI Summary that arrived with Oxygen OS 14 and 15. Now, OnePlus is consolidating the plethora of its AI features under the OnePlus AI branding, adding Gemini support to its stock apps, and launching the new AI Plus Mind feature, which will debut with the OnePlus 13s.
OnePlus's Alert Slider gives way to the Plus Key
Starting with the upcoming OnePlus 13s, scheduled to launch on June 5, OnePlus has gotten rid of the iconic Alert Slider. In its place is the new Plus Key, a hardware button that can be remapped between several functions beyond just toggling your device's ring state. You can still use it to switch sound profiles, but you can remap it to launch the camera, initiate a translation, or start audio recording.
If the Plus Key sounds familiar, that's because we've seen a similar transition from Apple. With the iPhone 15 Pro series, Apple got rid of the Mute switch in favor of the customizable Action button. The entire iPhone 16 series adopted the Action button, and we expect the trend to continue for the foreseeable future.
Similarly, OnePlus's Plus Key is here to stay, and the company plans to launch it with all OnePlus smartphones this year.
The Plus Key is the key to OnePlus AI's AI Plus Mind and Mind Space
One of the primary features that the Plus Key unlocks on the OnePlus 13s is AI Plus Mind, a new feature that lets you quickly save, catalog, and recall key information displayed on your phone screen.
When users find information they wish to retain for later use, like schedules, event details, reservations, listings, and more, they can capture and store it in AI Plus Mind by pressing the Plus Key (after remapping) or through a three-finger swipe-up. AI Plus Mind then 'intelligently' saves the relevant on-screen content to a dedicated Mind Space, so all this saved information remains easily accessible in one location.
Beyond the simple screen capture, OnePlus says AI Plus Mind uses AI to analyze content contextually. For instance, it can extract schedule details from an image or text and add them directly to the user's calendar.
Further, the AI Search feature in OnePlus Launcher integrates with AI Plus Mind, so you can use natural language queries to locate saved information quickly. The company says that AI Plus Mind will also automatically categorize saved content later this year for better organization.
Even further in the future, OnePlus hopes to integrate an LLM into Mind Space and build a Persona feature that will share everything that Plus Mind has summarized about you. OnePlus's vision for AI Plus Mind is to provide recommendations and suggestions based on the user's details and provide a better and more personalized AI assistant integration. These planned features are far out in the future, so don't hold your breath on them just yet.
AI Plus Mind and Mind Space sound a lot like Nothing's Essential Space
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
Once again, if AI Plus Mind and Mind Space sound familiar to you, that's because we have recently seen a very similar feature, this time from Nothing.
Nothing has included an Essential Key on its Phone 3a series and the CMF Phone 2 Pro. This dedicated button launches the AI-powered Essential Space app, which captures screenshots, photos, and audio recordings. The AI then processes this information to create reminders and to-do lists.
We have yet to test OnePlus's implementation ourselves, but it's immediately clear that a few things help the feature stand apart from Nothing. For starters, the OnePlus 13s' Plus Key is remappable, whereas the Essential Key cannot be easily remapped. OnePlus' AI Plus Mind also has an alternate trigger gesture, making it easy to access even if you remap the Plus Key. My colleague Ryan dearly missed gesture support for accessing Essential Space, so at least to this extent, OnePlus has brought an improved experience onboard with their implementation.
However, there's no getting around the fact that the similarities in the bare concept of Essential Space and AI Plus Mind/Mind Space are striking. Hopefully, the feature isn't as half-baked as Nothing's implementation, and we hope to find that out soon with the OnePlus 13s.
AI Plus Mind is coming to the rest of the OnePlus 13 series
Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority
AI Plus Mind will also be available on the OnePlus 13 series through the three-finger swipe-up feature with a future update. The company didn't clarify the timeline or whether the feature will be available to the rest of its portfolio, but we're optimistic about a wider rollout.
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