Nothing just announced its long-awaited “first true flagship,” the Nothing Phone 3, and killed off one of its most popular and unique phone features in the process.
The flashing lights that crisscrossed the back of its previous phones, known as the Glyph Interface, is gone. In its place is something new — a round black and white screen on the rear of the phone, adjacent to the cameras, which Nothing is calling the Glyph Matrix.
With an interface of monochrome dots, the Matrix can show a range of information about the phone while it’s face down on any surface. These include the time, the phone’s battery percentage and pixelated portraits to show who’s calling. What Nothing is referring to as “Glyph Toys” also bring an element of fun to the Matrix, with games such as rock, paper, scissors; spin the bottle; and a magic 8 ball.
The introduction of the Matrix is major change for Nothing, and one that fans of the brand might initially be skeptical about. At first, I was too. Ever since it released its very first phone back in 2022, Nothing has proved itself to be a rule breaker — especially when it comes to design. The Glyph Interface has helped define Nothing’s creative and experimental approach, and has set its phones apart in a sea of mundane and identikit devices.
The Matrix seems at first glance to be less bold and more restrained. I asked Nothing Founder and CEO Carl Pei why he decided to make the change. One motivation, he said, was that currently around 80% of people have the Glyph Interface activated on Nothing phones and he wanted to make it “more functional.”
Nothing CEO Carl Pei said he wanted to make its new phone “more functional.”
“Sometimes when you’re looking at the patterns, it’s not the easiest to remember who’s trying to contact you,” he said. “Now we can set emojis, we can set patterns — it’s a lot more visual space to really show differentiation. So if it took three seconds to understand what was going on before, now you understand in one second.”
This sentiment was echoed by Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight. “The Glyph Interface was interesting, but I always found it a little bit challenging to always figure out what it was trying to tell me,” he said. Conversely, the little icons and graphics that can be displayed on the Matrix are likely to be easier for people to understand.
My hands-on time with the Nothing Phone 3
When I spent some time with the Nothing Phone 3, I couldn’t help but agree. I always enjoyed the Glyph Interface’s flashing lights, but rarely could I work out what they were trying to tell me.
The Matrix, on the other hand, is very easy to read. There’s a touch-sensitive button below to activate it and flip through the various toys and features. You then long-press to engage with them individually. I tried this successfully with the spin-the-bottle Glyph Toy, although chickened out from following through given that none of the other tech journalists in the room had actually agreed to play with me.
Spin the bottle, anyone?
I also played around with what Pei tells me is his own favorite feature of the Phone 3. When the phone is face down on the table and you hold down the Essential button on the side of the device (designed to activate the phone’s AI features), the phone will immediately start recording, with sound waves flowing across the Glyph Matrix. When you press it again during the recording, a dotted pattern, like a small explosion, appears on the Matrix, signaling that the AI has taken note of the fact this is a key moment in the recording that you’ll want to return to later.
Even though the Matrix is less eye-catching than the Glyph Interface, it is also refreshing to see Nothing shake up the design and introduce something new, given that this phone represents the company stepping into flagship territory for the first time. “You have to keep the design fresh,” said Wood — especially when you consider Nothing’s core audience of cool kids with strong aesthetic sensibilities.
Nothing has grown massively in the past few years, shipping millions of products and reaching over a billion dollars in sales. But the fact that it still accounts for only 0.2% of the global smartphone market also means it’s still nimble, giving it leeway to play with new ideas, which is harder to do when you’re selling a mass-market product.
“We have to try new things and evolve as a company,” said Pei. “We’re the only ones small enough to be able to experiment, so we should take that opportunity.”
After playing around the Glyph Matrix, I do feel glad Nothing has taken the opportunity to shake things up. The Matrix might not be as flashy as the Interface, but it is genuinely clever and useful, while proving Nothing hasn’t lost its edge when it comes to putting a unique spin on phone design.
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