One problem I have with my touchscreen smartphone is the accumulation of fingerprints on the screen, requiring constant cleaning. My smartphone has a capacitive touchscreen, meaning that it will not work with a stylus. It requires finger contact. I have noticed, however, that the capacitance is not interrupted by a thin cloth. For instance, it works when my T-shirt is wrapped around my finger.

So, what I am proposing is a finger cot made of thin microfiber cloth, so I can cover my index finger and thumb without needlessly covering my whole hand and fingers I don't use. This would allow me to use the touchscreen without leaving fingerprints, and in fact would clean a portion of the screen with every touch. An elastic band around the opening would keep it from falling off. I chose microfiber cloth because it's almost always been recommended to me for use cleaning the coated lenses on my glasses, and most lens cleaning kits I've bought include a microfiber cloth. It doesn't leave residue like cotton does, and picks up dirt particles rather than pushing them around and scratching the surface you're trying to clean. That's why professionals always caution against using your shirt.

My other solution for this problem is a bit of a WIBNI because I don't know enough about capacitance to know how to make it work, but I think it would be possible to make a stylus that either has its own capacitance or conveys the capacitance in my hand to the screen. I don't know, could that work?
-- 21 Quest, Apr 28 2009

Finger Cot http://en.wikipedia.../File:Fingercot.jpg
[21 Quest, Apr 28 2009]

Microfiber Cloth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfiber
[21 Quest, Apr 29 2009]

Turns out a capacitive stylus has been released already for the iPhone, and the maker's website claims it'll work with any capacitive touch panel device, so that part's baked. Please disregard the last paragraph of the post. I do prefer the finger cot, however, because I always lose styluses (styli? stylusi?) and even non-capacitive styli are expensive. The cheapest price I found for a capacitive stylus is 12.65 apiece, whereas finger cots could probably be sold in packs of 20 or so for close to the same price.
-- 21 Quest, May 02 2009



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