Apple Computer, Inc. is misogynistic!This is the claim of Erica Watson-Currie, a consultant and lecturer of some renown (I guess) who maintains that it’s hard to operate the new iPhone if you have long fingernails. She says, “Considering ergonomics and user studies indicating men and women use their fingers and nails differently, why does Apple persist in this misogyny?”
She wants Apple to go back to a stylus so women with long nails can use the keyboard. Um, isn’t one of the beauties of the iPhone the fact that you don’t need a stylus?
Somehow I can’t imagine the Apple design engineers all getting together and saying, “Women won’t date us for some completely unknown reason. What can we do to get back at them?”
Are contact lens manufacturers also misogynists?
And guitar makers?
How about the folks who make single-ply toilet paper?
And the ones who made rotary phones? Those couldn’t have been easy to dial with Vampira nails, even the “princess” models.
This goes back to my rant on political correctness. Why do we have to take everything so personal? It’s a friggin’ cellphone with a bunch of extras! It’s not a statement. It’s not the revenge of the nerds.
Seems to me you could touch the screen with the side of your finger, or the pad of your finger, or your thumb, or new nose? Or, just not buy one.
Now the people who make that Ikea furniture you have to construct yourself...
that’s a different story. Those man-haters ought to be SHOT!!!!
HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!
ReplyDeleteThey fell for my cunning plan, all the long-nailed ones who laughed while I danced with my sister at the Redondo Beach High School Senior Prom, "Night of Undying Memeories", in 1983. I hatched my plot that very night, and now it has all reached fruition.
Mmmmm. The Chinese are right. It DOES taste best served cold.
And in two months, we're dropping the price by $300.
And next year, we bring out a new one that makes all of these obsolete!!!1
HA! HA! HA! HA!
I agree.
ReplyDeleteEverything isn't for everybody. I guess Ms. Watson-Currie has a campaign against Trojan too? She can't use those. Or maybe she can. But those nails won't help her there either.
I hope she doesn't moonlight as a proctologist. And making balloon animals is out too.
On the plus side though, I'll bet she picks her nose like nobody's business.
The people who make single-ply toilet paper are not misogynists - they're misanthropes - they hate everyone but can only get back at the people who are too cheap to buy two ply. I'd rather use sandpaper than one-ply.
ReplyDeleteNow the people who make that Ikea furniture you have to construct yourself...
ReplyDeleteMy family and I went to Ikea about three weeks ago in Costa Mesa, and on the way to the registers, we stopped at a computer chair in the warehouse on display. My parents decided that they liked it so much, we needed one for him. Under the cart went the box which contained everything but usable instructions and a big bottle of aspirin. I think booze should have been in there too.
Anyway, the next day, my dad and I attempted to put it together. The holes for each armrest you have to screw in didn't look like they aligned correctly. By this time, I'm fuming and I just want to go to the sanctity of my room, where my beloved widescreen TV and DVD player are, as well as the comfort of knowing that neither of them were this needlessly complicated.
My first thought while watching my dad yet again try to align the holes and get the screw in is, "Why didn't we just take the display model and lash it to the top of our car? No matter the freeway traffic. If it's tied tight enough, it'll get home unharmed."
My second thought was one I told my mom once the chair was finally put together, though I was thinking about it the entire time while putting together the chair: "You fucked yourself when you bought it."
If ever I need some kind of bedside table from Ikea (they do have some ready-made things I like, such as their storage boxes), I'm buying the display model. Let the invisible employees do something useful for once and put a new display model together.
My parents decided that they liked it so much, we needed one for him.
ReplyDeleteAnal-Retentive Stickler Mode on: There, I meant "we needed one for the house."
An addendum: I know that Congress is rushing to investigate everything they didn't these past eight years, and putting forth bills that they think will get them re-elected. But they've got their priorities vastly wrong. They need to investigate Ikea immediately. Just writing about that chair construction debacle makes me angry about it again, and mind you, it's a comfortable chair.
Mmmmm. The Chinese are right. It DOES taste best served cold.
ReplyDeleteDog?
Hey America,
ReplyDeleteSTOP WHINING! Not everything is about you, and the world isn't a giant web of conspiracy theories. Newsflash! Most people aren't racist, sexist, misogynisict midget haters! Stop spending so much brain time worrying about imaginary slights. Get over it.
The world would be a better place if you focused on YOUR OWN faults and spent some time fixing them up.
Thank you ken for posting this. Love the blog.
Isn't anybody going to comment on how fucking clever it have an article concerning misogyny and right there at the top is a picture of Katherine Heigl playing with her iPhone?
ReplyDeleteWell, I think it was.
Everybody knows that iPhones are for girls anyway.
Was so tickled by this that I had to mention it somewhere:
ReplyDeleteNot long after the scene in the movie "M*A*S*H" of the Painless Pole's sexual dysfunction problem (read: can't get it up) is cured by a nurse, a commercial comes on AMC for ExtenZe Maximum Strength Male Enhancement. Whomever programs the commercials has got a terrific sense of humor!
My classical guitar playing friend had a hell of a time trying to operate my iPod touch with the disgusting claws he calls fingernails. At least he could have switched hands.
ReplyDeleteCaptions for photos:
ReplyDelete"Oh no! They misquoted me. What I really said was, 'I didn't do enough with the material given me to deserve an Emmy nomination."
"You think I'm an ungrateful beeyotch? Me?"
"28 Dresses? I don't think so."
5000% more people have now heard of - or at least Googled - Erica Watson-Currie (and her self-help video) than did before. Thanks, iPhone!
ReplyDelete5000% more people have now heard of - or at least Googled - Erica Watson-Currie (and her self-help video) than did before. Thanks, iPhone!
ReplyDeleteHi Ken, when I attended The Sitcom Room I was the one typing the scripts for my group. My fingernails were likely 1-1 1/2 inches long, since that's the usual length I keep them cut to.
ReplyDeleteNote I said *my* nails. I don't glue on some abomination from the plastics extrusion industry to the ends of my fingers. I've had long nails for the past, oh 40 years or so, and have keypunched 1000 card COBOL decks, coded 10k line FORTRAN programs, and worked just about every piece of computer industry hardware that's come out since before Woz was hacking an Altair. No problems!
Input devices that require either sustained pressure or a change in impedance can be used by people who have long fingernails. If you have real nails, you just tap it with the nail or a combination of the nail and finger tip.
If you're worried about the nail flying off and tumbling through the air like some glossy fuchsia roach, tap with the side of the tip of the finger, or the first knuckle, just like you said. This also works if you've been waylaid by some helpful group at the local mall doing blood sticks for disease of the month.
Talk about a non-issue. Sounds like someone was looking for 15 minutes of fame and a goodie bag from Apple.
I think we should stop giving air time or any kind of time, to spoiled, self-centered whiners. Not every complaint is legitimate... This reminds me of the pathetic people who have reality tv shows made of their idiotic, self obsessed lives...
ReplyDeleteI don;t even want to see a fraction of their lives when I channel surf for something of value on TV. I can't wait until this trend of self-obsessed, has-been celebrity reality TV shows, is over...
Good lordie, its a Monday alright!
Am I missing something here. I mean, if you couldn't operate the iPhone if you had breasts or a uterus, then maybe she'd have a point -- but long nails. There's a little invention called nail clippers! Maybe someone should tell her about them.
ReplyDeleteOr she could just pony up $25 and get one of these.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tenonedesign.com/stylus.php
Hey, fashion has its price.
Could we drop the phrase "politically correct," which, as far as I can tell, has lost all meaning, and return to the term we used in the good old days? I'm referring, of course, to "stupid," which is deeply deserving of a comeback.
ReplyDeleteThat is just retarded.
ReplyDeleteAny woman who wears her nails that long KNOWS it makes simple tasks more difficult. That's the choice you make to have a fancy manicure.
And that is why my nails look like a random assortment of calcium plates. My hands are made to do stuff, not look pretty.
I've never understood why certain women have long nails. It makes it more difficult to do everything, and it's not as if it makes a woman look more classy. When I think of a woman with long fingernails, three things come to mind. Hookers, housewives from Long Island with big hair and 14 year old girls who are suddenly allowed to use makeup for the first time. My apologies, of course, to women with long fingernails who do not fall under any of those categories.
ReplyDeleteI’ve met these women. She needs to try poking at it with her penis. And to be comforted by the fact that real women felt even more strongly when the accordion was introduced – by a fellow named Buschmann no less; I am not making that up just to satisfy this blog's MDR (minimum daily rant) for misogyny. We were just starting to sound a tad Rooney.
ReplyDeleteI mean, what’s the problem? Like she’s one of those Guinness Record guys from Sri Lanka with the world’s longest serpentine fingernails (in which they can still navigate just about everything but 3-Card Monte)?
Doncha remember our folkie 60’s when we grew that one long nail for either guitar or snorting?
Isefton is definitely on the right track. What Apple needs is to come out with a manual (get it?) like this one I found on eBay:
Ashby Allen’s Fingernail Lengths and Shapes for Guitar Pickers
http://reviews.ebay.com/Fingernail-Lengths-and-Shapes-for-Guitar-Pickers_W0QQugidZ10000000005416818
in which are discussed the four basic fingerpicking style appendages:
1. Flesh/Nail Combo
- Rounded nail – Segovia
- Ramped nail – David Russell (worth the photo)
2. Nails Only – Julian Bream (retail outlet: “Just Nails.”)
3. Flesh Only – (the aptly named) Fernado Sor
4. Artificial Nails – Michael Chapdelaine
You need to visit the eBay site if only just for the photo of the author. One of those hair-beard combos where the guy’s head looks exactly the same upside down.
Rory, up in Canada, IKEA stores have perched at each checkout (even the self-help cashes) their house brand "champaign"/wine/swill.
ReplyDeleteSee, unlike other retailers, IKEA clearly knows their customers and can - and does - antisipates their every NEED to ensure satisfactory shopping experiences every time you step foot in any of their stores!
I would love to see Costco sell booze right at the front door in and at the cashes because just thinking about there sober makes me long for a bottle to suck back. I hate shopping there during the high peak times of the day! I would rather have a colonoscopy while awake than shop there with those "family friendly" crowds.
Didn't they used to sell little telephone "dialers" for rotary dial phones? I remember the Tiffany's clerk pointing a sterling silver one out to Holly Golightly and "Fred" in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Problem solved.
ReplyDeleteI had long nails for a long time until I learned guitar.
also, they _could_ just use a stylus on it.. it'll still work, it's not like the screen has a human skin detector on it.
ReplyDeletelesbians will have no problem with the iphone then
ReplyDelete"lesbians will have no problem with the iphone then"
ReplyDeleteBut who would they call? Everyone knows lesbians are like pigeons; they mate for life.
What do you call living together for 9 years?
A lesbian first date.
Last time I checked, Apple wasn't stopping them from cutting their fingernails or buying a different phone.
ReplyDeleteIKEA: Swedish for "some assembly required"...followed by maniacal laughter!
ReplyDeleteGiven the amount of insanely expensive "MUST BUY" electronics that Apple has put out, I thought they hated everybody.
ReplyDeletePeople say that Apple have a gift for marketing, but what is marketing besides telling people they are losers?
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to Apple for accumulating all of these people so that we can blow up an Apple iStore to take so many out at once.
It's a new suicide bomber target except it's all touch screens now.
I see no problem here.
ReplyDeleteIf their fingernails are too long for the iPhone then they are also too long to give handjobs.
Take the hint.
Did it ever occur to that woman to just trim her damn fingernails? How about typing with the tips of the fingers -- like playing the piano -- like everyone else does. Please.
ReplyDeleteAs for build-it-yourself furniture? It takes a woman to do it right.
Somehow I can’t imagine the Apple design engineers all getting together and saying, “Women won’t date us for some completely unknown reason. What can we do to get back at them?”
ReplyDeleteThat's why you write sitcoms, not romcoms.
IKEA: Swedish for "some assembly required"...followed by maniacal laughter!
ReplyDeleteIKEA: Also Swedish for "retail sadism."
In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, actress Nichelle Nichols as Uhura has 3/4-inch nails and uses the pads of her fingertips to operate her communications panel, without apparent difficulty.
ReplyDelete