With the cold comes a seasonal problem for folks with iPhones and other touchscreen smartphones. That's right? Capacitive touchscreens can't detect when someone presses on them with a glove.
Actually, here are some quite convenient ways:
1. Making your nose acts just as your finger would. That must be a "good everyday way" to answer your smartphone without removing your gloves.
2. Licking a gloved fingertip before swiping, or breathing on the phone and swipes the screen as soon as possible. This method uses your saliva or the condensation from your breath to provide the moisture that would normally come from your fingertips but gets blocked when you wear gloves.
3. Replace with a meat stick. It really does work. The grease in the meat stick provides the conductivity needed for the screen to recognize it, even in sub-zero temperatures.
4. Buy the smartphone gloves. There may be hope though. Patently Apple has found that Japan's Hitachi Displays may have a solution.
Jacob Wobbrock, a professor at the University of Washington's Information School, explaned that gloves block the electric charge transmitted via the moisture in your fingertips while you using the touchscreen.
The company has developed a projection-type touch panel display capable of detecting what they call insulators which are items such as plastic or cloth.
There's a good chance that the new display will be coming to your favorite Apple portable device soon. The panels are available in sizes from 3 to 10 inches which Patently Apple points out would cover the current line of iOS devices by Apple.
The downside of such a new display? It could put startups, which make smartphone friendly gloves that allow you to easily uncover your fingers, out of business.
