A review of the North Face ETIP can be found here

http://www.macnuggets.ca/Hardware-Nuggets/using-your-iphone-or-ipod-touch-with-gloves-in-cold-weather-winter.html

http://dotsgloves.com/

Can you be more specific about which isotoner gloves? I see they make various types from different materials.

Yes, it is unfortunate that many design decisions also bring with them a percieved method of use and preclude uses outside such. Fortunatel;y there can be some unforseen custom uses and that over time mass market penetration tends to solve some issues.

David

However using the mouse keys on a laptop is utterly painfull. It’s bearable just on a full sized keyboard where theres a seperate number keypad but on a laptop I find them terrible because the number keys are also letter keys.

It is however, like you say, an option and one I’m glad exists. Just wish there was something with more ‘flow’.

Maybe we need to see if someone can develop some tiny micro powered device to emit a tiny charge that can be stuck on the end of a stick or sown into garments like gloves.

Dave

In Mac OS X, you can turn on an option to move the mouse pointer around using the built-in keypad keys (on laptops, that’s ‘Num Lock’, then the {7-8-9 / U-I-O / J-K-L} keys). You can also turn on an option to use the Tab key to cycle through ALL the clickable user-interface elements. Again, not an ideal solution, but there may be ‘Sip/Puff tube’ interfaces that could be adapted to work with these options.

All of these options can be found in the Universal Access panel of System Preferences (Apple menu | System Preferences | Universal Access). The ‘Keyboard’ and ‘Mouse & trackpad’ tabs hold most of the options for limited-mobility issues. You’ll also want to turn on the option for ‘Enable access for assistive devices’ by clicking the checkbox at the bottom of the preference panel.

Under the ‘Keyboard’ tab, we find the following:

– ‘Sticky Keys’, which makes it MUCH easier to deal with keyboard commands using modifier keys like Control, Option and Command. There is also an option to turn Sticky Keys on or off by pressing the Shift key five times in a row.

– ‘Display pressed keys on screen’, which shows currently active modifer keys using a large translucent symbol on screen.

– ‘Slow Keys’, which introduce an adjustable delay between the time a key is pressed and when it is accepted. This prevents inadvertant keyboard events when the user has difficulty with fine motor control.

Under the ‘Mouse & Trackpad’ tab, we have ‘Mouse Keys’, the option that allows you to use the numeric pad to move the mouse.

Here you’ll find options to allow turning this off and on by pressing the Option key five times in a row, setting an initial delay to avoid spurious inputs, mouse speed, and mouse pointer size.

There’s also a button here that takes you to the "Keyboard" preference pane, where you’ll find a section called ‘Full Keyboard Access’, where you can set the Tab key to tab between ‘text boxes and list [items] only’ or ‘All Controls’. You’ll want to pick the latter option.

With Full Keyboard Access turned on, tabbing causes the selected UI element to be highlighted. Arrow keys can be used to move between sub-elements (list items, for example) and the Space bar can be used in lieu of a mouse-click. This is particularly useful in web browsers.

Admittedly, in current versions of Mac OS X, support for this in applications is somewhat spotty. Allegedly, it will be *much* easier for developers to fully support this feature in Mac OS X 10.5, due out sometime in the next few months.

However, it remains to be seen whether the iPhone interface will still register click events when the user is wearing gloves like these. See my previous comment about click-sensing via electrical field changes.