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Is The iPhone Sexist?
For those of you who have been following along, my mom was seduced by Steve Jobs’ iPhone. This was and is an astonishing thing, since my mom is very far away from being a techie.
On the day of the iPhone launch, she waited in line at an AT&T store (and I waited with her) to get her new phone.
My mom loves her phone, but one issue came up which triggered an interesting thought. She had a hard time using the phone initially because of her fingernails.
My mom does not have big garish fingernails, but they were longer than any man’s fingernails, extending perhaps a quarter or a half inch beyond her fingertips. The problem is that the iPhone screen requires touch by skin. the tip of a fingernail will not work. This is a problem because it means that the angle that your finger touches the screen at is such that the you end up making contact with the screen with a very large imprecise area of your finger. In short, my mom kept missing the intended screen buttons.
Now in reality, my mom clipped her nails and everything was fine. But I guess my question is whether that is a reasonable expectation in the product design. Were there any women on the product team? We’re there any *girly* women on the product team — women that like the idea of painted fingernails that extend a bit beyond the fingertip?
I am sure many of you will say that is the price of technology. But I myself wonder if there were some equivalent male focused impediment if it would have been considered acceptable.
I am not sure that this is the perfect example, but this whole episode just got me thinking about design issues for men vs women. How many other, perhaps more subtle issues like this are there that I and other product designers/developers don’t think about? It is indeed striking that such a basic issue for the iPhone, as far as I can tell, really has not been discussed at all. Will most of my male readers, or readers in general, argue that such issues are irrelevant?
Editor’s note: In addition to Hank’s findings, last winter we wrote about the inability to use the iPhone with gloves on.
This article was authored by Hank Williams who is a New York-based entrepreneur who recently launched a new blog: Why Does Everything Suck? exploring the tech marketplace from 10,000 feet.
Women who want to sport long nails have been dealing with this for quite a while. Typewriters (remember those?) and the subsequent evolution of keyboards offer similar barriers to access. So do touch tone phones. One of the best solutions (at lease on an iPhone) is to use a knuckle. It won’t replace two-thumb typing but its fine for single digit typing.
istara and joh.hersh have commented all that needs to be said about this issue.
Case closed.
thats funny i have finger nails and i use my iphone 3g just fine x)
Well I guess I will have to keep my new Blackberry because I do have nails and it is a chose not a Female thing…so sad that we are still having this same topic go on …I am a child of the sixties…Steveie boy maybe next time…think outside of the box…we are all getting older and could use a little help with this tech thing…just a thought…
You could just as easily say the phone “discriminates” against people with poor motor control who can’t accurately use the touch screen or those with poor vision or blindless because they can’t read the screen. Or even men with longer nails (which isn’t particularly uncommon these days).
Long nails and touch screen control aren’t female-only issues – but with “sexism” being such a hot button in the blogosphere lately, I guess tagging that word on to an article makes it all the more sensationalist.
I work at an Apple Store and I recently had someone return their iphone for this same reason. He’s a professional classical guitar player and his finger nails are really long and they have to be. So in his case, he couldn’t just cut his nails… he had to get rid of the phone.
I’ve also read somewhere that you can buy artificial fingertips to put over your long nail so you can use an iphone. I just think that would be a total pain, because you would have to take it everywhere you take your phone.
Nice read, I do think that they wouldn’t have kept the male vs. female issues in mind when designing the iPhone though. Everyone touts these touch features as finger operated devices now. No mention of a finger nail.
I’d submit that women having long fingernails supports the Female Stereotype. That’s society’s problem, but not Apple’s.
@joe – Wouldn’t it be considered a problem if they are losing customers to it? It is a usability problem and one that Apple _should_ focus on, especially with the new MacBook designs where everything is touch.
Now, in response to the users, if it isn’t going to work because you have nails or whatever impediment, don’t buy it.
Apple’s not the government; they don’t have a responsibility to build everything to comply to everyone.
They built a product for a market, and they’re selling to that market in droves. Lipstick companies don’t have to bother trying to make their products more accessible to men.
It’s not really a sex issue as much as a matter of the technology and the product they’re creating. This new multitouch technology is awesome, and a market of warm-fingered, short-nailed people love it. But there are some side effects. So be it. No big deal.
Can people with long fingernails or wearing gloves really effectively operate a Blackberry Curve? Or a Q? With those tiny little buttons?
It’s a lifestyle decision. Being able to use your fingertips affords you certain benefits, which you forfeit at your own discretion.
One could have nine nails and it wouldn’t be a problem, just tap the key with the pad of your finger, that is how I do it and it is no doubt how it was designed to work. I don’t know why people think tapping straight down with the end of the finger is the way the iPhone must work.
How do people with long nails use a Blackberry etc?
I’m a pretty geeky gal and even I have fingernails that are longer than the tips of my fingers. And yes, I noticed that my nails are a bit of an issue when using the iPhone virtual keyboard — which is a big part of why I still have a Blackberry.
So if you want to use an iPhone – cut your nails. Long nails are so disgusting anyway. It’s not like we’re Chinese emperors.
Besides – for the long-talonned – would carrying around an artificial finger pad be such a strain? Styluses were the norm for many PDAs regardless of nail length. Given long nailed people have already created difficulties for themselves in so many areas (ever seen that ludicrous typing style used by secretaries with inch-long fake plastic nails?) I can’t see why they would need to whine about the iPhone.
Congrats to Hank’s sensible mother for cutting her nails nice and neat.