(Image credit: Future)

I've been using the Nothing Phone (3) for a good chunk now, right since the end of the brand's lavish launch event last week – and I've got a detailed review of the phone in the pipeline once I've had enough time to truly assess its merits.

Still, the week that I've been using the phone for has been enough to establish one thing very clearly in my mind: it has one feature that I wish my iPhone could match. That feature isn't a headline-grabber, and it'll shine a spotlight on the fact that it's been a minute since I used a higher-end Android phone.

No, it's not the redesigned Glyph Matrix, although I do like its at-a-glance widgets. Rather, it's the humble fingerprint scanner – a feature that the iPhone had for years before it ditched it to go all-in on Face ID, which Apple has long maintained is more secure.

That might well be true, and I'm not in any way calling for the return of a true home button to house it (all-display designs are indeed the best, for me). Still, the under-display scanners that have become the default for Android phones are pretty excellent, and it's been surprisingly refreshing having the freedom to unlock my phone without any contortions of my face or neck.

(Image credit: Future)

Of course, the vast majority of the time, your phone is facing your face when you unlock it, so Face ID works perfectly, and extremely quickly. Still, even the most hardened Apple fan should concede that there are times when Face ID isn't perfect.

It might be because you're unlocking your phone without looking at it, or because you're wearing sunglasses (which Face ID still sometimes struggles with, despite improvements), and being able to circumvent it with another, more guaranteed biometric backup is a boon on the Nothing Phone (3).

It helps that Nothing's latest phone has a good one, which I've found extremely reliable and near-instantaneous during my testing. Still, the real point is that when I move back to my iPhone sometime next week, after I feel I've used the Phone (3) enough to go into all the detail needed in a review, I'll miss being able to use my fingerprints to unlock it.

I don't have any real expectation that Apple will add this feature back in at any point. It seems very confident in moving forward with Apple ID and fine-tuning that system, and strategically, I can't really find fault in that, given the continued popularity of new iPhone models. Still, maybe a blast from the past could be a feather in the cap of an iPhone 17 or 18 down the line – add a fingerprint reader back in, and I can guarantee I wouldn't be the only one rejoicing.