In that position, the main atraction is the phone's input method, its capacitive multi touch based screen. The 3.5 inch liquid crystal display is intended for the usage of bare fingers, so normal styluses and gloves will not work on the iPhone because they are not able to produce the minimum amount of electrical conductivity that is needed in order for the phone to recognize finger movement on the screen as touch events.
The touchscreen, not only on the iPhone but in general is an electronic visual display that is able to detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area, 3.5 inch in the case of the Apple iPhone. The term touchscreen is not that complex, as it comes from touching the screen with your hand or finger. Those are not the only ones that can be detected, as you can use some passive objects like styluses as well. However, that is none of an Apple's fan concern, as the iPhone does not need any kind of styluses, because it has a sensitive enough screen to be pleasant to use. The touchscreen has two main attributes: First, it lets users interact directly with the device's display, rather than having to use an alternative indirect method, like a cursor. Second, it lets users do so by also removing any secondary objects that may be found in the process, like the mouse in the case of the cursor, or the touchpad for laptops. The best touchpad example is with the Apple iPad which represents a laptop replacement, and has no touchpad as it was replaced with touchscreen technology. Touchscreens also play a prominent role in the design of digital appliances such as personal digital assistants (PDA), mobile phones, video games or satellite navigation systems. When it comes to touchscreen technologies, there are several to chose from. Apple currently uses the capacitive touchscreen technology for the iPhone.
Resistive Touchscreens
The technology used for the resistive touchscreen consists of several layers, from which the most important layers are two electrical conductive ones. They are separated by a gap and when an object presses down on the outer surface of the device's screen, the display acts like a pair of voltage dividers with connected outputs. This causes a change in the electrical current which is registered by the phone as a touch event and sent down to the controller for processing.