Getting touchy but not feely with touchscreen gloves

Having a waited almost a year to blog praises of one of last year's Christmas presents (my Urban ears headphones, which (ironically) have just broken and need fixing/replacing ☹), I thought I would be a bit quicker off the mark this year!

I'd been pondering the merits of touchscreen gloves for a while, as I do use my iPhone a lot on the way too and from work and it is mildly inconvenient (and sometimes cold) to have to de-glove to change track, take a photo or read a message. I'd never actually got round to looking into them, though, and seeing if they were more than just a gimmick, or even comfortable as gloves. (I wasn't even sure what the fingers were made of, to be honest.) It was therefore great to get a pair for Christmas - along with some good opportunities to try them out straight away in a chill December Dublin.

My initial reactions are good and they work really. They're definitely not as responsive as naked flesh but then you wouldn't expect them to be. I think this is in part you cannot really feel the contact in the same way as you can with exposed fingers, so you cannot rely on touch when typing, for example, to know that your press has registered. Your fingers are also obviously fatter in gloves, so you cannot be quite so sure that you are pressing the desired buttons. As a result, you have to rely more on sight, which slows things down a bit, but I have not experienced any frustration due to my touches failing to be detected.

The drawbacks are pretty minor and I would definitely recommend them for the winter touchscreen user. For most iPhone activities when you'd be wearing gloves, it's still faster than taking regular gloves off and then putting them back on again - plus, of course, there's no need to expose your hand(s) to the cold. They function well as gloves too! Now I just need the weather in Southampton to turn cold again, so I can use them some more!