Nothing has strongly indicated that it’s eliminating its distinctive Glyph Interface for its smartphones, and I for one could be totally behind such a transfer.
The British tech startup, run by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, took to X (previously Twitter) lately with a characteristically pithy assertion.
It reads: “We killed the Glyph Interface”, and is accompanied by just a little animation of the corporate’s lighting system respiratory its final.
A lightweight for drawing consideration
This assertion appears to counsel that forward of the launch of its subsequent flagship cellphone, the Nothing Telephone (3), Nothing has accomplished away with the gimmick that basically set it aside in its early years.
When the Nothing Telephone (1) landed in July of 2022, the primary speaking level – alongside this being Pei’s first post-OnePlus product – was the flowery lighting system on the again of the cellphone.
The Glyph UI was composed of a singular sample of white LED strips dotted across the semi-transparent rear of the cellphone. These have been talked up as being greater than mere beauty frippery, and would flash in time with ringtones and notifications.
They may additionally illuminate to point charging progress and serves as a fill gentle, amongst different issues.
Dominic Preston / Foundry
Glyph us a break
With the Glyph Interface going the way in which of pressure-sensitive screens and unibody metallic designs, Nothing would seem like dropping a significant distinguishing level for its cellphone.
Besides, I don’t suppose that it has. I’d argue that the Glyph Interface has served its foremost goal: drawing consideration to a small startup tech firm in its precarious early years.
With no suitably mammoth advertising and marketing finances, it’s an extremely tough ask to compete with large corporations like Samsung and Apple. Nothing nonetheless isn’t on that degree, but it surely now has a foothold available in the market and a specific amount of brand name consciousness.
A number of {hardware} iterations down the road, it’s now able to launch its first true flagship cellphone, and the standard can largely converse for itself.
Dominic Preston / Foundry
What’s it for?
Personally talking, I by no means adopted the Glyph Interface into my day after day use past the testing part. As somebody who’s wholly averse to display protectors, and who routinely runs their cellphone in silent or vibrate mode, I by no means lay my telephones face-down.
Which means that I hardly ever look behind my cellphone, rendering an elaborate rear-mounted notification system kind of pointless.
With the display all the time dealing with in direction of me – correctly – I can inform once I’m being referred to as by the display lighting up or a vibration sound. After I wish to set a timer, I undertake the basic measure of utilizing the preinstalled Clock app.
I recognise that these sound like statements of the bleeding apparent, however that simply serves for example my level. Nothing’s Glyph Interface was all the time a cool gimmick searching for a goal, and it by no means actually discovered one.
Henry Burrell / Foundry
Subsequent to Nothing
Some studies have recommended that it is perhaps producing a customisable dot matrix show to interchange the Glyph Interface, which seems like swapping one unused gimmick for one more. I’m extra within the suggestion that this shall be Nothing’s most subtle and superior cellphone but.
Different current studies counsel that would be the Nothing Telephone (3), and the newest information means that it’ll are available in black and white, that pricing will begin at $799, and that specs will embody 12 or 16GB of RAM and both 256GB or 512GB of storage.
None of which is remotely stunning, and all of which drives house the corporate’s declare that that is going to be Nothing’s first correct flagship cellphone.
Simply to be clear, this isn’t a criticism of Nothing. Fairly the alternative in reality.
I’m excited to see what’s subsequent from Nothing, even when it’s just a little extra subdued in nature. The corporate’s design work is on level, its telephones all the time supply glorious worth, its customized Android UI is healthier than most, and the Nothing aesthetic is powerful sufficient to face by itself two ft with none flashy lights to distract.