The Tippy Type makes typing with long nails less tedious

Long nails are not for the weak. Have you ever tried removing contact lenses with 20mm claws? Terrifying. But aside from the fear of poking out my eyeballs, long nail life makes little everyday things difficult, too. Opening soda cans, pressing buttons, changing out trash bags without poking a hole, and even personal hygiene — they all require you to get creative. But by far, the most annoying thing is typing.

Typing with long nails is the embodiment of “beauty is pain.” On phones, it makes me slow, and I end up with so many typos. It’s worse on laptops, where the keys are flat and fundamentally incompatible with the curve of a longer nail. You end up typing with the tips of your nails and the sides of your fingers. No big deal if I’m shooting off an email, but a 1,500-word review? After a while, it hurts.

It’s why I was intrigued when the TikTok algorithm threw the $45 Tippy Type into my feed.

The Tippy Type is a silicone keyboard cover for folks with medium-to-long nails. It features tower-like cylindrical keys so you can type as you naturally would: with your finger pads and not your nails. The proposed benefits are two-fold. One, it shouldn’t hurt at all. Two, it protects your manicure.

I can already hear the trolls making jokes about women being concerned about breaking a nail. If it’s so inconvenient, why not just have short nails? Well, I’m not out here wearing long nails for fun. Being a reviewer often means acting as a part-time hand model for whatever gadget I’m testing. The Internet Nail Police has repeatedly shown up in my comments over the years if my polish is chipped or, god forbid, there’s a smudge of dirt under my natural nail.

The worst part is that they’re not wrong — the photos and video footage won’t look as nice. Never mind that this is largely a gendered burden. Something about longer nails elongates the fingers and makes for a more attractive product photo.

But nice nails are not cheap. A set of acrylic or gel extensions, for example, can cost as much as $120. Press-ons are much more economical, but I live in fear that one of them will pop off at an inopportune moment. For example, the other day, I lost one because I pulled my pants on too aggressively. I’ve had a couple fly off while typing. And it’s annoying carrying nail glue everywhere you go — or, in the case of extensions, having to schedule another appointment. Preserving your manicure for as long as possible is a form of saving time and money.

In theory, this is why the Tippy Type is attractive to long-nail devotees despite its $45 price tag. But like any product, it has to live up to the promise.

The first time I used the Tippy Type out of its case, it felt weird. CEO and cofounder Sara Young Wang warned me that there’s a slight learning curve. She wasn’t kidding. It’s hard to describe, but if you’re used to squishier keys, this isn’t that. The keys are firmer and require a little more pressure than your typical laptop keys. The cylindrical shape also gives you less surface area so, at first, you have to think about finger placement.

Adapting doesn’t take long, though. I gauged my progress with and without the Tippy Type using one of those one-minute typing tests. On the first day, I got around 60 words per minute with 98 percent accuracy. After about a week, I was averaging somewhere between 80–90wpm with 98–99 percent accuracy. Anecdotally, typing with the cover has reduced my typos compared to typing without it.

But it’s not perfect. I had no problem with both medium and long press-ons, but if you’re rocking extra-long nails, this might not work well. Also, some keys still aren’t the easiest to press. For example, the arrow keys are small and awkward, and there’s no cover for the function keys aside from the Esc key. In addition, you can’t easily close your laptop if you’re, say, stepping out to the bathroom. Lastly, the 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.

Ultimately, whether the Tippy Type is worth buying boils down to how often you use a laptop and how committed you are to your nail game. Are you like gymnasts Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, or Suni Lee, where not even Olympics-level tumbling can stop you from long-nailed glory? Then, yes, it is probably worth it. In my everyday life, however, I mostly use a desktop with a mechanical keyboard — which is more forgiving to long nails. I probably wouldn’t have felt the need for a product like this if I weren’t in the thick of tech review season.

Even so, the Tippy Type has been useful for me these past few weeks, when my deadlines were tight, the review word counts long, and the nails fabulous.