In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone. In short order, nearly all smartphones featured a capacitive touchscreen. Gone were the jabscreens of old, which required poking at the screen with a stylus or forcefully with a finger. Now, a light touch from a finger is all that’s required, and it’s a delightful interaction.
Three years later, in 2010, I purchased a new winter jacket. In its left-hand pocket, I was intrigued to find a stylus, sewn into place on an elastic cord. This actually seemed quite convenient, as capacitive touchscreens don’t accept input from your fingers when they’re covered by gloves.
Apparently, however, no one told Salomon about the iPhone and all that it inspired. The included stylus, you see, is not capacitive. It is instead little more than a special dialing wand1, useful only for punching input into flip phones of yore.
And so it was that in 2014, after almost four years cursing the stupidity and uselessness of the jacket’s designers, I finally excised the stylus from both my jacket and my life. So long, you worthless lump of plastic. So long and good riddance!
Honestly, I’d rather they’d sewn in a baby carrot to nibble on.
Admittedly, I no longer have a place to clip my mittens, but that seems a small price to pay to get rid of this waste of space.
Footnotes:
-
This audio clip courtesy of The Simpsons, of course. ↩︎
