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Touchscreen Devices and Gloves Don't Mix — or Do They?

Simon Mackie — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:00:06 +0000

Winter has definitely arrived here in the UK, with temperatures dropping over the past week or so, prompting me to break out my winter coat and gloves. I actually quite enjoy the changing seasons, but gloves are awkward because they don’t work with devices with capacitive touchscreens (like my iPhone, and also the trackpad on my MacBook), and constantly removing and replacing gloves when fiddling with my phone quickly becomes annoying. Fortunately, I’ve found there are quite are a few workarounds that let you keep warm mitts and stay connected on the go.

Use fingerless gloves. Any style of fingerless gloves will obviously work, but the Etre Touchy gloves I added to my inexpensive gift guide look particularly good, and because they are only missing thumb and index fingertips, your hands will stay a little warmer than full fingerless gloves. If you don’t like the idea of having exposed fingertips at all, then maybe convertible glove mittens are the answer — to answer a call or check email you’d just need to flip back the mitten top.
Use a stylus. You can buy relatively inexpensive styluses to use with touchscreen devices. (Here’s one specifically for the iPhone, for example.) It’s important to use a stylus that won’t scratch the screen over time. If you don’t want to pay for a dedicated stylus or happen to lose yours, Lifehacker provides this clever trick: Use the negative (flat) end of an AAA battery. Because the end of the battery is smooth it won’t scratch your screen, and exhausted batteries work just as well as fresh ones — it works well, as you can see in the photo at the top of this post.
Use conductive gloves. You can buy gloves specifically made to work with touchscreen devices — these Dots Gloves have special conductive pads on the the tips of the thumb and three fingers, and aren’t overly expensive (ranging from $15 to $25 per pair — they appear to be popular as many sizes are currently sold out). There are also these PlayPoint gloves. However, if you don’t want to shell out for special gloves, you can also make your existing gloves work with touchscreens by sewing conductive thread into the fingertips, and it’s easy to do — there’s a tutorial on how to do it over on Instructibles.

Do you have any other workarounds for using gloves with touchscreen devices? Share them below!

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Must-have iPhone and iPod Touch Apps For Newbies

Charles Hamilton — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:00:32 +0000

It’s WebWorkerDaily’s fault that I’ve bought an iPod touch . (That’s my excuse, anyway.) As I looked at potential subjects to write about, I kept seeing cool apps, and I need to be able to test them, right?

But why not buy an iPhone, or a Palm Pre, which I’d had my eye on for several months? The Pre seems to be a good phone, but it doesn’t yet have the apps that the iPhone does. And the monthly fees for Pre service are considerably higher than what I’m paying now. The iPhone’s monthly fees are even higher, and many folks I’ve talked to don’t find it to be a very good phone.

So, keeping my current phone and buying an iPod touch seemed like a good compromise. I can get good Wi-Fi coverage in most areas where I live, so I’ll be able to go online, even without the phone function.

Many of my WWD colleagues already have iPhones. Aliza has recently written about good apps for web workers. Dawn’s shared her favorites, too. But with the holidays coming up, here are some of my ideas for apps to put on that brand-new iPhone or iPod touch:

Communication

eBuddy. A multi-service instant message client for MSN/Windows Live, AIM, Yahoo, Gtalk, ICQ, Facebook Chat and MySpace Chat. Supports multiple accounts on the same service. Versions for web, Android and other platforms also available. Free.
Facebook. A well-designed way for Facebook users to keep up with their friends while on the road. The app has had its issues, but they are apparently fixed now. Free.
Gist. Scott and I have both found Gist useful, and the Gist iPhone app does a pretty good job of presenting a lot of information in a small space. Free.
LinkedIn. This app keeps LinkedIn users, er, “linked in” from their iPhones and iPod touches. The latest upgrade adds some nice features, including an inbox for LinkedIn messages. Free.
Nimbuzz. You can use this app to make inexpensive international calls over Wi-Fi. The app also includes a chat function, but it’s pretty rudimentary compared to eBuddy. Free app; rates for calls vary.
RingCentral. If you’re a RingCentral user, you can use this app to manage your phone messages and more. Free for RingCentral users.
Tweetie. There are lots of Twitter apps, but so far, I like Tweetie the best. It has a clean interface, and supports multiple Twitter accounts. Thanks for the tip, Darrell! $2.99.
Waveboard. Mobile access to Google Wave. Will hopes for better access soon; I imagine that this app will become more sophisticated as Wave does. $0.99.

File and Idea Management

Dropbox. This app is another reason to love Dropbox, which many of us at WWD do. As one would expect from Dropbox, it just works. Free.
Evernote. My colleagues at WWD like Evernote, too, and I’ve finally seen the light. It’s a great replacement for PhatNotes, which I used to use with various Palm products. (The Palm versions are apparently no longer available.) Free.

News

Reeder. A very nice and elegant RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader. $0.99.

Just about every news source also has its own iPhone/iPod touch app these days. So far, I’ve been impressed with the ones from NPR and from some news outlets that have used the PodCurry platform.

Password Management

1Password. Manage and sync passwords. I’ve been playing with the brand-new version 3, and it’s good enough that I’ve moved from SplashID after many years. Use Dropbox with 1Password to make your password data available on multiple machines. $7.99.
LastPass. Manage and sync passwords across multiple machines. The Firefox add-on for this service was included in WWD’s Add-Ons Collection. Apps for iPhones and other mobile devices available with premium membership, $12/year.

I’ve barely begun finding fun stuff, but I think I’m off to a good start with the Google Earth app, and TriPeaks Lite. I’m sure that I’ll find more, but I really need to get back to work now. Happy holidays!

What iPhone or iPod touch apps would you recommend for new users?

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Clearing the Cache — Google Edition

Scott Blitstein — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:30:19 +0000

Like many of us, I spend a lot of time on the web and come across a staggering number of interesting things. In Clearing The Cache, I pull out some of my favorites and share them with you here.

It seems like there was a lot of news coming out of Google this week — here are some highlights:

I share Simon’s enthusiasm in the new Shared Folders feature for Google Docs. There is a reason this has been the most often-requested feature for Docs and I’m thrilled to see it introduced and implemented extremely well.

While not really a productivity app for most users, quite the opposite actually, Google Building Maker is an insanely addictive way to look at your city and contribute 3D building models to Google Earth. Be careful before you click, you could lose hours here.

The Gmail team is always introducing new features in Labs, some useful, others not so much. The new Lab feature, “Got the wrong Bob?” looks to be one of the more useful ones. It attempts to determine if you’ve added the wrong folks to your distribution list based on your past emailing habits. With the auto-complete option it’s easy to accidentally choose the wrong person, this could be a life-saver to keep from sending things to the wrong people. Another handy new Gmail Labs feature, “Google Docs Preview,” lets you preview the contents of a Google document, spreadsheet or presentation right in your Gmail inbox.

I’ve been meaning to write about the Google Squared search functionality for a while now as I don’t think it’s getting near the attention it deserves. In essence, Squared attempts to present search results data in a more concise format — extracting common information from multiple sources for easy comparison in a tabular format. This week brought some major upgrades in both the amount of data returned and the ability to export it out for further analysis.

Since Google Wave invites began rolling out, Google Voice has seemingly been pushed down a notch as the product folks want access to. But if the demand is still there among your friends and family, you’ll soon be able to share the love by inviting them to Google Voice.

Which bit of Google news was most exciting for you this week?

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Calgoo Adds iCal Support

Mike Gunderloy — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:00:00 +0000

Calgoo – whose products we have covered in the past – has just announced the addition of Apple iCal support across its product line:

Calgoo Hub, which supports sharing calendars
Calgoo Connect, which handles synchronization of online and desktop calendars
Calgoo Calendar, a desktop calendar product

This brings iCal into the growing Calgoo compatibility list, which also includes Google, 30 Boxes, and Outlook. There are other options for synchronizing Google Calendar with iCal, but Calgoo is one of the few vendors trying to cobble together some sort of universal synchronization solution.

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