The iPhone fingernail problem

UPDATE JUNE 25: For those of you catching up to this just now, here's a new post looking at some of the criticism that our coverage of this fingernail problem has generated.

-----

Hillary Clinton broke new ground in her race for the White House. Yet some iPhone users complain that when it comes to the hot gadget from Apple, women are still being treated like second-class citizens.

Apple said this week that on July 11 it would upgrade the iPhone software for free with new features for all current owners. On the same day, it will start selling a new version, the iPhone 3G, that runs on a faster data network, includes GPS and costs as little as $199.

But Erica Watson-Currie of Newport Beach was frustrated that the improvements didn't solve the fingernail problem. She and other women who have long nails -- as well as people of all genders with chunky fingers -- have real trouble typing on the iPhone. The 39-year-old consultant and lecturer, who says her fingernails are typically between one-eighth and one-quarter of an inch long, wants the iPhone to include a stylus.

"Considering ergonomics and user studies indicating men and women use their fingers and nails differently, why does Apple persist in this misogyny?" Watson-Currie (whose fingers are pictured at right) wrote in a comment on our post Monday about the iPhone launch.

But many people assert that one of the iPhone's best traits is its ability to function without a stylus, the often-misplaced mini-chopstick required by the Palm Pilot and other earlier hand-held gadgets. Apple created the iPhone with a multi-touch screen, navigated by presses and swipes of the finger. Unlike a BlackBerry or Treo, which has a separate keyboard, the iPhone requires you to type by pressing a virtual keyboard that appears on the screen.

Problem is, the iPhone's touch screen responds to the electrical charge emitted by fingertips. And pretty though they may be, fingernails don't emit one. When the first iPhone came out nearly a year ago, tech journalist Russell Shaw at ZDnet identified the fingernail problem and predicted that Apple might find a tough market with teenage girls (nevertheless, the company has sold 6 million iPhones and remains on track to sell 10 million by the end of this year, a goal that should be helped by the $200 price cut).

The New York Times, citing Nielsen Mobile, reported this week that the number of women using smartphones more than doubled last year, to 10.4 million, growing at a faster pace than men.

Those iPhone users who have chunky fingers might hanker for a stylus too. Some experience problems ...

... typing on the touch screen because their fingers cover too much space, said Gavin Lew, managing director of User Centric Inc., which has studied the iPhone user experience. "There's tight real estate there," he said. "You are asking your finger to hit the letter just right and no others. You may be trying to press the W but you accidentally hit the Q."

Apple's software automatically corrects typing mistakes, a feature that many people like. But it does sometimes guess the wrong letters.

Apple declined to comment about fingernails and the iPhone. In the past, the company has said that it's more natural to use the pointing tool you were born with: the finger.

Adding a stylus would disturb the very essence of the iPhone, said Anthony Andre, founding principal at Interface Analysis Associates, a usability and ergonomics consulting firm. A key feature of the iPhone is that, unlike other devices, it doesn't respond to anything except touch. That lets it tell the difference between a deliberate swipe of the finger and an accidental brush of, say, a pocket lining. "If you put my Treo in my pocket, I'm making phone calls," Andre said.

That's not the only problem our readers found with the iPhone. In the comments, they complained that Apple should have fixed another issue that has caused grumbling since the device hit the market a year ago: Users can't cut and paste text to save time. Other items on the wish list included a video camera and the ability to view Adobe Flash Web pages.

As for the fingernail problem, there have to be solutions, right? A company called Ten One Design sells an aftermarket iPhone stylus for about $20 to $25 apiece. Watson-Currie hasn't been impressed by the reviews and thinks Apple should offer a stylus on principle. Why not just cut her fingernails? "It's the machine's job to accommodate its users, not the other way around," she said.

Those who don't want to choose between fingernails and an iPhone can learn to type using the sides of their fingers. That might be good enough for surfing the Internet or making phone calls. But doing serious e-mailing or text messaging that way can be onerous.

"Why are they still discriminating against those of us with fingernails?" another woman posted on our earlier story. "Guess it's a Blackberry for me :("

Speaking of the BlackBerry, what about typing with your thumbs on the iPhone? Heidi Roizen, a prominent Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur, says she gets around the fingernail problem that way. "My thumbnail does not hit it," she said. But she adds that the approach doesn't entirely solve the problem because there's barely enough room on the iPhone screen when held vertically (see big finger issue above). On Roizen's iPhone wish list: that the virtual keyboard would switch into "landscape mode," or spread out horizontally as it does in displaying photographs, when she types e-mail so that the keys are wider across the screen. 

Andre, the ergonomic consultant, says he has a win-win solution: Fingernail polish with a material that activates the iPhone touch screen.

Brilliant! VC firm Kleiner Perkins is offering a $100-million iFund for iPhone-related businesses, so maybe someone should get cracking. Might we suggest a few names for the nail polish hues: iPhone Indigo, Oscillator Ocher or Touch Screen Taupe.

-- Michelle Quinn

Photo: Erica Watson-Currie

Comments

[emcee]

What a sad, sad, sad world we live in when people actually have to complain about a high tech gadget that does infinitely more than any computer could 20 years ago and all in the palm of your hand. If we did as much to cars as Apple has to music and car phones, do you think you all would cut your nails to have one? If you have time to generate a story like this based on the length of your nails you are the lowest common denominator in human evolution. Do humanity a favor and get out of the gene pool.

[Mark McDougal]

USE THE SIDE OF YOUR FINGER. Tap on the side of your finger near the corner of the nail. It takes a bit of practice, but you can type accurately and fast on an iPhone with this technique..

[Oz]

Ok, first of all this article is ridiculously irrelevant, if she has a problem with her damn fingernails cut them or simply just dont buy an iPhone, Are you that retarded that you need to write a long article about why they should improve the iPhone. They dont care about you and your damn long fingernails because they will always be making money.

[Short Fingernailed Woman]

The fact that a gadget is more difficult to use because of long fingernails is no more "misogyny" than the fact that a short woman might need a stepstool to change a lightbulb means high ceilings are "misogyny". Erica must have led a pretty sheltered life if she's never actually experienced real sexism or misogyny.

[RandyTB]

I like the idea of allowing for a landscape keyboard so that the keys could be larger. I would like that, not because I have fingernails, but I'm a man with large hands and fingertips.

Whether the way Apple has designed this or not is misogynistic isn't half as startling as the misogynistic responses from other readers of my gender. Get a clue guys! You'd all be throwing a fuss if a major car manufacturer came out with a model which had a gas pedal designed for smaller feet and didn't allow the driver's seat to go back comfortably for anyone over 5'6".

Asking Apple to be tuned into its potential customers a bit better is completely legit. I love my iPod Touch, but it's not beyond improving. E.g. How lame is it that it can access the Internet, but it won't run videos requiring Adobe Flashplayer? I'm amazed at how defensive people get whenever a suggestion is made about how to improve an Apple product, as if you were demanding that Apple products be treated as sacred cows that shouldn't be criticized. It is a commercial product. It was not sent down with the original stone tablets.

[George Kaplan]

Sorry, Randy, but the blatant sense of entitlement coming from Watson-Currie's expectations require rebuke, none of which rises to the level of misogyny. Such ridiculous claims as hers cheapen the woes of women who deal with real sexism and misogyny on a regular basis.

This isn't about men subjugating women with their penis-centric works. It is about being self-centered and expecting the world to meet oneself on one's terms alone. It isn't as if Watson-Currie lacks for options (e.g., cut the nails, use a different phone).

It is about a company designing a product which can be properly used by 90% of the target audience, and someone in the vast minority expecting that the product's specs or features will be changed to accommodate her personal desires. Watson-Currie needs a reality check in the worst way.

[RRaya]

Yes this is the future and back in the early days it was required for women to have longer finger nails to scratch there husbands backs.
But those days are long gone so why are women still growing long finger nails?
Girls cut those nails and start getting those hands dirty the time for change is now.
Plus the iphone is an awesome product.

[the_chris2.0]

"It's the machine's job to accommodate its users, not the other way around," she said.

One of the most ignorant things I have EVER read!

It's the consumers job to purchase the appropriate machine. I didn't read the part where Erica was forced to buy the phone.

What an awful sense of entitlement she has.

[GodOfBiscuits]

I tried to use an iPod once or twice, a total exercise in frustration. Whatever happened to stop, play-pause, last track, next track and other simple controls that click when you push them? iPhones must be just as weird. Who needs it, NOT ME.

What the hell are you talking about? the wheel is a click-wheel. pressing on the "buttons" causes a mechanical key-press. PHYSICAL key press. You know, like a KEYboard?

As for the article, wouldn't she have problems with typing on any small device? by that measure, the iPhone would be the best shot she'd have at getting words correctly typed, given the word-level (NOT character level) smarts in the keyboard.

i'm as liberal as they come, but seriously? Sexist iPhones?

[DBX]

The problem is that long nails simply are inherently incompatible with this kind of touch screen. The only solution for this problem is for Apple to do another smart phone that uses a stylus or something. Such a device presumably could also handle the nails themselves in lieu of a stylus. However it would have to be a pressure-sensitive touch screen as opposed to the electro-sensitive one they have.

[KindredMac]

I just showed one of the girls in my office my iPhone and showed her how you are suppose to type on it and she had no problems by the time she was typing her second sentence on it. Guess what, her nails are longer than the girl's nails in the picture.
The iPhone is not for everyone. Here's a list of people who should stay away:
-Blind
-Deaf (for the iPod feature)
-Dumb
-Stupid
-Self Righteous
-Arrogant
-AirHeads
-Ignorant

If you don't like it, then go use a Palm or CrapBerry. She only wants an iPhone because it is the "cool thing" to have right now. Guess what, there are a lot of us out there that actually use every feature on the phone. I for one like to replace what ever I can in my house with the Apple version of it. All my computers are Macs, we have a bunch of iPods for different usages, our WiFi is all Apple and there is an Apple TV sitting in my living room. Apple products work like they should and how you THINK they should.

[fred fasen]

I can't believe with all the real problems we face, someone would have the gall to complain about something this trivial. Different products are made to suit different indiviuals.buy something else! Evidently the iPhone is not the product for you. Time to move on, there is no sympathy card to play.

[Puddy Tat]

What about using her knuckles (the 2nd joint of the fingers)? That seems like a natural reaction of adaptation if the nails are ineffective. The thing with new technology is that people expect it to be perfect. Nothing could be further from the truth.

[N. Courtney]

From what I've seen, just as with the iPod, people who bought the iPhone, tend to be somewhat lacking in self esteem the fact that someone would show off a phone to someone, I mean really it's a communications device.

Being an electrical engineer I've never seen a real need for a touch screen, eventually they scratch (Unless that's a sapphire screen or some other scratch resistance substance, which I doubt the fine little particles that get on your hands will eventually wear down the screen as will the constant friction.), and most eventually with time develop dead spots.

She does have a point that most people are over looking most engineers are men, but sometimes looks win out over long term functionality.

Kind of like dating a really pretty woman with no substance, eventually you will get tire of the outward appearance and long for something with a little more substance, and longevity.

[Dave]

This is more than just a fingernail issue. For more on the 'Touch Barrier' read tis: http://is.gd/xHv

Dave

[Bill]

Conductive fingernails won't solve the problem. The iphone screen also requires a large profile touch. I've experimented and the profile that touches the screen has to be at least the size of an eraser. If you look at the currently markets styli for the iphone, the have large tips. Now making something to fit on a womans (or maybe even some mens) fingernails large enough to be useful, would be downright goofy, and completely self defeating...

[dggraphics]

Who are these morons? Fingernail Problem? WTF?

[Erick Blair]

The fact that this essay was published in a so called reputable newspaper is pathetic. The fact that there are even a couple of people who take it seriously is worse. That woman's worthless opinion and the credulous reaction to it is sad. People like her make life harder and less enjoyable. If she doesn't like her phone that woman should be shamed into putting the Iphone where the sun don't shine, but no, she's given a soapbox in the local paper where, of course, she whines. Figures.

[Seinfeld]

That lady in the picture has man hands anyways. Get a manicure trim or get another phone. Quit griping about something you didn't design and aren't forced to use.

[Mike]

Seriously? This could be the stupidest non-problem I've ever had the misfortune to come across. What's next? Chic accessory-dogs discriminating against their owners because their poop smells?

[mark]

if you dont like it..... DON'T BUY IT

wtf is wrong with these people. These whiny crybabies find ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to complain about

[Tim]

Yes, it doesn't work will for blind people or people who have lost their fingers. It also 'forces' people to hold it with the display facing them.

This was one of the most dumb and selfish articles. Years ago the thought was that Earth was the center of the universe. Now it seems that the individual is the center of the universe. Very sick. Put another way, if when rock climbing the natural shapes of the rock don't fit one's hand, should we redesign it so it fits every one?

Sometimes people have the gift of criticism and much else to bring to the table.

Try to see the good in things and not the limits.

[GjP]

Lol....we are back to the days of suing McDonalds for serving hot coffee.

I could list 50 things that are not compatible with longish finger nails. Lady you're going to have to do what we learned in kindergarten. ADAPT. That is what humans do best. So stop your whining, bitching and complaining. Purchase something else that actually comes with a stylus. Your desire to be with the "In Crowd" obviously clouded your judgement to purchase smart.

Buy a Blackberrry or a Treo. I'm also sure the guy who posted that "everything" he owns in his house is Apple produced..well he's obviously insecure by the mere fact that he needs the world to know what he owns.

[Hiram]

When paying for groceries, and I have a cashier with ridiculously long fingernails, I like to lay the coins on the counter. Now THAT'S entertainment!

[Matthias Billingsworth]

I'm sorry, I don't understand...

Why would you need an iPhone in the kitchen?