Hey there! If you’re reading this, let me warn you that this one is a bit long but it’s from the heart, and it’s all about Nothing. Like a very personal story…
I’ve followed Nothing since day zero.
Every teaser, every cryptic drop, every launch. Kinda wanted their products badly. But more than that, I felt like I wanted to be part of whatever this, sort of, “transparent tech movement” was.
So I waited till I could buy a Nothing product for myself. And finally, last year, I bought the Phone (2). Better late than never, yes. From the moment I unboxed it, I knew, this wasn’t just another phone.
This was a platform.
A canvas.
More like a signal that the tech world might still care about users like me. The tinkerers, the creatives, the nerds.
I’ve been modding phones since I was about 14.
Flashing ROMs onto my old Samsung phones, the OnePlus One, 2 & 7, even long after the updates stopped. Enjoyed re-theming entire UIs for fun. Some even provided more software functions.
I loved squeezing every last drop out of hardware that the world had already moved on from.
For years, it felt like no one was building for people like me anymore. And I think this feeling was strong between 2018-2021.
Then came Nothing.
Not only did they build meaningful, minimal hardware… they opened the doors.
They dropped the Glyph SDK, letting anyone play with the lights on the back of the phones, and now the Glyph Matrix on the Phone (3).
I seriously jumped in without thinking twice & without any development expertise.
I’ve now built two full apps for the community:
🔓 Glyph Unlock Pulse —
My first Glyph experiment. Simple, personal, expressive. Does a little unlocking animation shenanigan with the Glyph lights whenever you unlock your phone.
📦🧸 Glyph Toybox —
A project close to my heart right now. For the new Glyph Matrix on the Phone (3).
As of today, it includes 5 Glyph Toys — each designed to add either a function or just an element of fun to the Glyph Interface.
→ Battery Ampere Toy
→ Ringer/Vibrate Toggle
→ Flip a Coin Toy
→ Affirmations Toy
→ Pomodoro Timer Toy
It’s part experiment, part art, part celebration of what Nothing enables.
The Nothing team talks to us users. Listens. Even responds to wild ideas. Example- I actually thought the Glyph unlock animation was a “silly” idea until the SDK team told me it was a cool one and I went all in to build it.
In March this year, I was at the Phone (3a) series launch party in Mumbai.
I met @Akis , their co-founder, in person, and he genuinely asked us- waiting in the queue to get in- for feedback on the products we’ve been using.
Not as a formality. As a conversation. And he went to everyone, literally.
When was the last time a tech company cared that much?
Nothing didn’t just sell me a phone.
They gave me back the joy of creation.
The sense that I can still build weird, wonderful things, not to chase virality, but for the fun of it. And people like me? We live for that fun.
So here I am, making toys out of a small dot-matrix display.
Learning, sharing, creating with the community and for once, not chasing a career move.
Just… loving the process.
That’s what Nothing has done for me.
It reminded me why I fell in love with tech in the first place back in the 2000s as a child watching the iconic innovations and wanting to get my hands on them.
Thank you, Team Nothing, @Carl , @Akis , @Rob ⚡️ , @Deepanshu_Saini_ @adbo , @RohitPakalapati and a lot more of you behind the scenes at Nothing.
This is the most fun I’ve had in years.
Also, a big, big shoutout to the Nothing India Community Review Program managed by @Deepanshu_Saini_ . It’s actually been so freakin’ smooth and fun.
