Long nails are not for the faint of heart. Have you ever tried to remove your contact lenses with 20mm claws? It's terrifying. But besides the fear of poking out my eyeballs, long nail life also makes small everyday things difficult. Opening soda cans, pressing buttons, changing trash bags without poking a hole, and even personal hygiene all require you to be creative. But by far the most annoying thing is typing.
Typing with long nails is the embodiment of the idea that “beauty is pain.” On phones, it slows me down and I end up with so Lots of typos. It's worse on laptops, where the keys are flat and fundamentally incompatible with the curve of a longer fingernail. You end up typing with the tips of your nails and the sides of your fingers. No big deal if I'm sending an email, but a 1500-word review? After a while, it hurts.
That's why I was intrigued when TikTok's algorithm included the $45 Tippy Type in my feed.
Tippy Type is a silicone keyboard cover designed for people with medium to long nails. It has tower-shaped cylindrical keys so you can type as you would naturally: with your fingertips and not your nails. The proposed benefits are twofold. One, it shouldn't hurt at all. Two, it protects your manicure.
I can already hear the trolls making jokes about women worrying about breaking a nail. If it's so uncomfortable, why not just keep your nails short? Well, I'm not here to keep my nails long for fun. Being a reviewer often means acting as a part-time hand model for whatever gadget I'm testing. The Internet Nail Police have repeatedly popped up in my comments over the years if my polish is chipped or, God forbid, if there's a smudge of dirt under my natural nail.
The worst thing is that they are not wrong: photos and videos will not look as good. Never mind that this is largely a gender issue. There is something about long nails that elongates the fingers and makes the product photo more attractive.
But nice nails aren't cheap. A set of acrylic or gel extensions, for example, can cost as much as $120. Fake nails are much cheaper, but I live in fear that one of them will come off at an inopportune moment. For example, the other day, I lost one because I pulled my pants up too hard. I've had a couple come off while I was typing. And it's annoying to carry nail glue around or, in the case of extensions, have to schedule another appointment. Keeping your manicure for as long as possible is one way to save time and money.
In theory, that's why Tippy Type appeals to fans of long nails despite its $45 price tag. But like any product, it has to deliver what it promises.
The first time I used the Tippy Type out of its case, I felt weird. CEO and co-founder Sara Young Wang warned me that there’s a bit of a learning curve. She wasn’t kidding. It’s hard to describe, but if you’re used to softer keys, this isn’t it. The keys are firmer and require a bit more pressure than typical laptop keys. The cylindrical shape also gives you less surface area, so you have to think about finger placement at first.
However, it doesn't take long to adapt. I assessed my progress with and without Tippy Type using one of those one-minute typing tests. On the first day, I typed about 60 words per minute with 98 percent accuracy. After a week, I was typing an average of 80 to 90 words per minute with 98-99 percent accuracy. Anecdotally, typing with the case has reduced my typos compared to typing without it.
But it's not perfect. I had no issues with medium and long presses, but if you have really long nails, it might not work as well. Also, some keys aren't the easiest to press. For example, the arrow keys are small and fiddly, and there's no cover for the function keys aside from the Esc key. Plus, you can't easily close your laptop if you're, say, going to the bathroom. Finally, Tippy Type is only available for MacBooks at the moment, though Wang says the company is working on versions for Lenovo, Dell, and HP laptops.
$45
Tippy Type is a keyboard cover for MacBooks designed to make typing easier for people with long nails.
Ultimately, whether the Tippy Type is worth buying depends on how often you use a laptop and your level of commitment to nails. Are you like Gymnasts Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles and Suni LeeWhere even Olympic cartwheels can't stop you from achieving long-nail glory? So yeah, it's probably worth it. However, in my daily life, I mostly use a desktop computer with a mechanical keyboard, which is more forgiving of long nails. I probably wouldn't have felt the need for a product like this if it weren't the height of tech review season.
Still, Tippy Type has come in handy these past few weeks, when my deadlines were tight, my review word count was long, and my nails were fabulous.
