iPhone: Women, Fat People Feel Alienated

Silicon Alley Insider:

Only one-third of Apple iPhone buyers are women. This is an improvement over the old ratio--one-fourth--but it's still nothing to be proud of. Why are women avoiding the device? Because it's hard to use with long fingernails. DailyTech:

Erica Watson-Currie of Newport Beach, Calif., a consultant and lecturer, is among the women up in arms that the iPhone won't respond to their long fingernails. She states, "Considering ergonomics and user studies indicating men and women use their fingers and nails differently, why does Apple persist in this misogyny?"

Read the whole story: Silicon Alley Insider

Comments

[Markvli]

Who needs the iPhone anyway? It's an overpriced Walkman with a cellphone jammed in it. The sound quality is lower than your portable CD player -- it only offers 128 kpbs sound, it doesn't even have cordless earphones, neither did the Walkman, and who in their right mind surfs the Internet to tinker in chat rooms -- that's so 1990s -- and isn't that really what social networking is??? We put a man on the moon decades ago and everybody is clamoring to get an antiquated, overpriced, piece of hardware that's hardly innovative frankly.

[loki]

No one ever spends millions of dollars on advertising to get you to buy things you need. Do they?

[CWW]

Do you work for Research in Motion? RIM... maker of the Blackberry? You seem quite hostile toward the iPhone.

[kellygrrrl]

I've lived in Newport Beach - this woman is the personification

wait 'til she gets pregnant and finds out she can't get her monthly dye and highlights

[ErnestineBass]

FROFLMFAO!!!

Yeah, babee!

[booker52]

Overpriced POS, and no I am not a fat man, yes I am a woman, no I do not have long nails.

[kellygrrrl]

hey, here's a thought:

how about you snap outta the 80s and ditch the claws

[research]

really, so ancient Mandarin.

[wedgie]

This was posted on the originating site:

"John Render said:
Jun. 26, 9:10 AM

If Erica Watson-Currie, Ph.D, of Newport Beach, Calif., consultant and lecturer with Thinker ("you keep using that word ... I don't think it means what you think it means") Consulting, were not so fully entrenched in the fantasy land of the shrieking class, she might consider this a business opportunity rather than a chance to pound the victim drum and draw attention to her blog. As, for instance, the people who sell an iPhone stylus on ThinkGeek have done.

Perhaps I'll send one to her. Then Ms. Watson-Currie could spend more time telling us how the many decades of red/green indicators on vast numbers of electronic devices is a clear indication of misandry, given that the majority of colorblind people are male. "

LOL.

**

[metropixie]

Immediately after this finger-nai­l-breaking news Apple's stock fell, so I bought some more...

[kellygrrrl]

good call pixie!

[Ramirez]

"Misogyny"? Gimme a break.

Get in the game, ladies. Innovate. Borrow a thimble from your grandmother or something.

[Dharil]

Thank you.

There is so much REAL misogyny in the world that for this birdbrain to allege that her fashion choice vis a vis a consumer product is victimization is an insult to logic as well as women.

I look forward to her suing the sewer grate manufacturers for not preventing her stiletto-heeled f*ck-me pumps from getting trapped.

Ya gotta FIGHT!
For ya RIGHT!
To SEXY!

(Back to history class with YOU, missy!)

[Sumocat]

"...the iPhone won't respond to their long fingernail­s." -- So stop tapping it with your nails and use your fingertips instead. C'mon, how do you even get through modern life without being able to touch a flat surface with your fingertips?

[speedingpullet]

Having seen the talons that some women sport here in LaLaLand, I hazard a guess that they haven't had a 'fingertip response' in decades.

[hollyo]

Think of the Ancient Chinese and their long nails...th­ey were proof you didn't do LABOR.

American women labor at work and in the home...key­boards abound...m­en had to learn how to type.
Long nails have no place in this brave new world.

[KillTheMessenger]

So the nail biter is the new hero(ine), then?

[proudloudlib]

I am a woman, and this headline scared me...until I read the story. I have never understood how women with long fingernails (including my sister and most of my best friends) function with them. How do they even use a keyboard? How do they find time for the manicure every week or so, not to mention the money?

Buying one July 11th!!

[kellygrrrl]

see ya' there :)

[Cynth]

I agree -- and wearing long nails is also not as hygenic, the germ traps that they are. If given a choice between long nails and the iPhone, the choice is easy....

[midknightryder13]

These women are going to be in trouble. What are they going to do when the contact of your skin to a touch screen is how we verify users instead of passwords?

I'm sorry, but I don't think that Apple (or anyone) else should feel guilty or accused of mysogyny because some women CHOOSE to have long fingernails and therefore, have difficulty using the product. That's NOT inherient in the gender. It's not even a predisposition like handedness is.

Now, Apple will probably devise a stylus. For example, there are probably people who's manual dexterity would make it difficult to use the iPhone in its current form and a stylus would make it easier. But, THIS 'demand' -- please. If you want to have long nails -- that's your choice. And choices have consequences.

[metropixie]

It's part of natural selection. Giraffes developed long necks to reach tree leaves. Women will ultimately lose their long nails because they are stumped by (virtual) keyboards. Luckily, around when that happens they will also be born with breast implants which may avert eyes from their short finger nails...

[Beardedfish]

You have got to be kidding me! This is misogyny?! Guess what, all the women I work with at my job keep their nails to a manageable length. Just because some women are stuck in the past and still have super long nails doesn't mean that Apple is discriminating against women.

[KillTheMessenger]

Stunner. Apple needs to come out with a screen that has a built in emery board. And don't forget the pink colors for menus and little sparkle over the case. And, last, but not least, the phone needs a shopping list tool, a beautician appointment calendar and a "Hello Kitty" screen saver.

[Cynth]

:-D