This app takes my Nothing Phone’s Glyph lights to the next level

When Nothing first switched from its original Glyph Interface to the new Glyph Matrix on the Phone 3, I have to say I was underwhelmed. Sure, the LED-filled circle looks cool and promises a new way to interact with your phone, but I couldn’t shake the fact that it felt more like a gimmick than the light-up strips. It packed more toys than tools, and I couldn’t make myself use it enough.

But now, I’ve found an app that changes things. It’s called Glyphify, and it adds a few new tricks to my Nothing Phone 3 and even more flexibility to Nothing’s older launches. Let’s check it out.

Having come out of my time with the Nothing Phone 3 so completely underwhelmed by the Glyph Matrix, I’ve been willing to try new things. I’ve kept a close eye on Nothing’s community page and added a few community-created Glyph Toys to my cycle — even replacing some of the first-party options I started with.

But then, when I downloaded Glyphify, which only costs a little more than $2, I realized that my light-up matrix had been missing something: Speed dial. For users of the Nothing Phone 3, the main draw of this clever little app has to be the Glyph Dial, which makes it incredibly easy to spin through a rolodex of your ten closest friends and family.

Or, at least, it’s made up a good 90% of my usage of Glyphify since I downloaded the app. To me, the Glyph Dial is just enough without being too much. I loaded a couple of my closest friends, those I speak to just about daily, and I’ve set it up towards the top of my Glyph Toys cycle.

Then, all I have to do is press the rear button to light up my Glyph Matrix and tap a few more times to find the right contact. A quick shake or a raise to my ear, and my call is on its way. I’d almost say it feels like the widget and gesture combination I’d expect from a flip phone, which automatically means I’m in love. And, to those friends who didn’t crack my ten-person rotation, sorry, not too sorry.

Of course, there’s a proper Glyph Toy baked into Glyphify, too. It’s called the Ball Maze, and it’s tickled my puzzle-loving brain in a way that the Magic 8 Ball, Spin the Bottle, and Rock, Paper, Scissors haven’t. Is it difficult? Nah, just a little way to pass the time, but it makes you tilt, lean, and spin your phone to guide the ball to its home. It’s very silly, yet much more fun than the chance-based games Nothing started with.

But as good as Glyphify is on the Nothing Phone 3, I’m jealous of the experience it offers on the Phone 2 and Phone 3a — or any phone with the original Glyph Interface. Instead of supporting a scroll-through speed dial, it gives Nothing’s older launches the ability to turn any audio clip into a light show, making it much easier to create custom ringtones with matching lights.

If you want even more control over your LED experience, that’s where the Glyphify Studio comes in. It lets you compose your own ringtones with matching lights, which you can then save and assign as needed. I’m nowhere near being a talented composer, but it’s still a cool idea that I’d kind of like to see make its way to Nothing’s most recent launch, even if it would take a bit more work to scroll a pattern across the circular Glyph Matrix.

If the developers behind Glyphify were to bring Studio support to the Phone 3, though, I certainly wouldn’t complain. I know some of these upgrades could only go one way (sorry, Phone 2 and Phone 3a users), but I’d like to see Nothing’s most capable launch get the most capable software support, too.