I suppose it wasn’t so much a ‘flaw’ in Apple’s design as much as it was an unfortunate side effect to have a completely touch screen device, but the inability to use your iPhone whilst wearing gloves is a problem, especially during winter when it’s so damn cold. I live in Manchester in the UK and it’s ridiculously cold at the moment and having to remove my gloves to use my phone was a little silly. To solve this problem, enter Dots Gloves.
Essentially, Dots Gloves are just woollen gloves with metal dots punched into the thumb, and the two subsequent fingers, which the iPhone responds to input from. They’re really smooth so there is no chance of scratching the screen (plus, let’s face it, the chance of scratching the glass on an iPhone is pretty difficult anyway.) Glove wise, they’re really nice. They’re just standard, thick knitted gloves so they’re nice and warm and serve that purpose well. Not really an achievement in the world of gloves, but it’s probably worth mentioning in case you were unsure.
I guess the main question here is just how do they work when used with your iPhone. Well the simple answer is that it depends what you’re planning to do. If you’d planned to type out emails and text messages whilst wearing your gloves, I feel you’ll be out of luck. Due to the dots being considerably smaller than your finger, it’s extremely difficult to type accurately using the gloves and on top of that, if you type with two thumbs, you’ll find the phone slips out of your hand because the gloves lack any grip. I did find I was able to type a bit by holding the phone in one hand and punching in letters with the other but it was pretty tedious so I tend to just wait till I’m somewhere warmer to reply or I call. For just basic use of the phone, answering and making calls, use of the iPod and so on, the gloves work well and I think that that is the main point. When you’ve got your gloves on, you want to be able to answer the phone quickly or change your song without taking them off and the gloves allow you to do so with ease.
Overall I’m pretty pleased. If I’m honest, I was expecting to be typing away on the phone using the gloves but I think that was a bit of a dream. Nevertheless, it’s nice to be able to make calls, use the iPod and so on without having to take the gloves off. I think whar would help is if they made a similar glove, but with a leather glove rather than wool. It would give a lot more grip for typing, and leather tends to allow you to use your hands in a more natural way than you can when wearing woollen gloves. I would recommend them if you’re after something like this, just bear in mind the slight issues with typing and you should be fine.
On a side note, I ordered my gloves in late September and received them in early November. Having emailed at the end of October, I was told that there was a month wait for the gloves due to the demand. When 6 weeks came around, I emailed again and was told that they were experiencing supply problems. Couple days later, the guy who had originally replied emailed to say he’d posted my gloves off to me, which was much appreciated. I say this to highlight that the demand is high, so if you want some, order as soon as possible or winter will be over by the time you get them! Hopefully the supply issues are sorted soon as to deal with the influx of orders they appear to be receiving, especially in the run up to Christmas.
Filed under: 1, dots-gloves, gloves, product, reviews
