Phone Fingers - Shameless opportunism made even uglier...

The iPhone is a hot product these days, no doubt about it. So what's the best way to obliterate the cool-cred gained by having the sweetest pocket rig on the market? Phone Fingers should do it. Basically, small condoms for your digits (yes, you even "unroll" them onto your unlucky fingers), these supposedly prevent fingerprints and smudges from accumulating on your iPhone screen. Hmm. Here are the first of maaany problems I can see:

1. Smudging isn't that much of a problem on the iPhone - it's something that had been worried about prior to its release, but which turned out to really be a non-issue.

2. Latex will tend to have a "grippy" friction against the iPhone's screen, which will impede important interactions such as sliding, scrolling, dragging, and pinching.

3. The product defeats itself: it exists to keep your iPhone looking good, but in fact only makes you, your iPhone, and everything it touches horribly, painfully uncool.

So, why do these things even exist? It's shameless opportunism, riding on the hype of a true phenomenon: if it says "iPhone," these days somebody is gonna buy it!