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Comment by harshpotatoes | Hacker News Reader

Another issue people don't bring up: the weather. Living in Seattle I frequently wore mittens. With the physical buttons it would not be a problem to operate the phone, with the touchscreen there is this long ordeal of pulling off the mitten to answer the phone. If it is raining (or rather, when is it not raining?), the rain will mess with the touchscreen, making it sometimes impossible to answer a call. You might say there is a solution: either cut off the fingers or sew in some conducting thread to the tip of the mittens. This doesn't solve the rain problem though.

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I use my nose, it works well if you can aim it.

My wife and I just discussed this solution, less than a minute before seeing this, with walk signals in the winter while wearing gloves. We found a problem: what if you get stuck? A cold, runny nose is almost as bad as a tongue (yet another solution).

I don't think you have to worry about getting stuck due to the cold, I don't think the phone will get cold enough for that to happen.

I've been thinking about getting some of these (http://WWW.THUMBDOGS.COM/) to deal with my phone while I'm on my motorcycle. There are also solutions based on sewing conductive thread through the ends of the gloves.

I have no idea how well they would work for the evil called capavitive buttons. I am consistently fighting with every electronic item I own that has those damnable things. I guess my fingertips just don't hold a charge.

>phone while I'm on my motorcycle

Probably not a good idea...

Take all the fun out...

The more likely time is when stopping for a minute to look at the map or change playlists. It is obnoxious to always be taking the gloves off for it.

I don't like to talk on the phone when I'm not riding; why would I ever choose to do it during my decompression time? :)

I bought an iPod classic for this very reason. I don't want to have to take off my gloves in the winter to operate a simple machine. Real buttons have the benefit of being usable while the device is in your pocket which is nice as well.

Who answers their phone in the rain with the face up? Isn't that a little ridiculous? I think every piece of technology has its limitations. I could argue that button phones are loud, and I can't text with them during class or meetings. If you answer your button phone while it's raining, the rain will likely also screw up your button-phone... probably with more permanent damage than touch-screens.

Also, a lot of touch screen phones (iPhone in particular) have been adapted for modern use. With my Klipsch Image S4i headphones (or with the natural iPhone 4 headphones), you can answer/hang up calls using the headphone controls. I've yet to figure out whether I can activate voice control for dialing, but that'd be even better.

When I need to dial on my iPhone in the winter, thin cabretta leather (damascus d302 for example) works wonders, at the same time keeping your hands dexterous and warm. I feel a lot of the problems you're describing are more functions of outdated technology, than poor design in general.

> Who answers their phone in the rain with the face up?

Or put to break this question into two parts:

1. Who would like to answer their phone when it rings, whatever the weather?

2. Could the phone sometimes be the "other" way up when you take it out of your pocket?

I think you're misunderstanding.

1. You already can, by using headphone controls. 2. Sure (if you don't feel it out), but how does a buttoned phone eliminate this problem? The issue is not mutually exclusive to touch-screen phones, and I'd argue it's worse on buttoned phones, since you risk the water seeping in between the button cracks.

"Who answers their phone in the rain with the face up? "

Someone who lives in Seattle?

Lifetime Seattleite, never had a problem with the rain and capacitive touchscreens. I know I'm just one data point and all that but it's not a common complaint AFAIK.

> I've yet to figure out whether I can activate voice control for dialing, but that'd be even better.

Long hold on the headphone button.

"Who answers their phone in the rain with the face up?"

People who have never managed to figure out whether it's a single click, long click, double-click, or whatever else on the headphone button to answer the phone.

People who have never figured the above out because they have a couple different sets of headphones that have made different choices from the above options.

People who don't habitually wander around with headphones on.

People who have already taken it out of their pocket to see who's calling.

I honestly feel that as an intelligent human being, our first response to meeting an inconvinence problem should be to think of a solution, rather than complain. All the things I've mentioned are by no means difficult to think of, or implement. iPhone comes with buttoned headphones. Thin Leather gloves serve other purposes and are decently cheap. To me, this sounds like: "I've opted to close my eyes, and I can't see my monitor! Design flaw!" rather than just opening my eyes.

I never walk around wearing headphones. I simply don't understand people who think that every waking moment of their life needs a soundtrack.

They don't need to be playing music, you know? I got a cheap ($10) bluetooth headset and I walk around with it in my ear all the time just to answer calls.

Some of us don't want to walk around with a thingy stuck on our ears.

Living in Toronto, I bought a pair of gloves (can't recall the name right now) that were "touchscreen friendly". They were something like $20 bucks and they look good IMO (look like average grey wool gloves).

I also make use of a pair of headphones with a control dongle to answer/reject/end calls and/or increase volume.

You could always just carry around a bit of hot dog in your pocket. I've actually seen this in Korea in the winter for operating capacitive screens and buttons on mobile devices.

It's not a hot dog, actually more like a kind of cheese, and by "kind of" I mean just about the most disgusting artificial cheese you can imagine. Very popular over there and sold at every corner store near the register in the impulse-buy section.

I was wondering if it was one of those little cheeses (in the yellow wrappers) or a small fish sausage.

http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00nTEtNeUzVaqh/Fish-Sausa...

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