Have you ever watched somebody with long fingernails tap-tap-tapping at their iPhone or iPad screen? It’s painful. Either their overgrown keratin caps skitter over the screen in a chitinous clatter, or they have to approach the screen with the flat pads of their fingers, as if they were carefully giving the government a perfect image of their fingerprints. But no longer. The most useful new product showcased at this year’s CES is Elektra Nails, a set of capacitive stick-on talons.
If you’re a woman (or a guy) with long nails, smartphone touchscreens are tough to hit accurately. That’s because they can detect the electrical charge on your finger, but won’t work with a fingernail tap. That’s where Elektra Nails comes in, turning a false fingernail into a conducting stylus for your touchscreen.“I had problems a few years ago hitting the target when I got my iPhone because of my nails,” said Sri Vellanki, head of Elektra Nails and a dermotologist. “I had to work around my nail to hit the screen.”