Once upon a time, it was possible to dial a cell phone in cold weather without removing your gloves, provided the gloves weren't too fat and the physical buttons on the phone weren't too small. In this modern age of smartphones dominated by capacitive touchscreens, it takes either bare skin or perhaps a refrigerated sausage in order to activate the virtual controls.
That may change as soon as next summer when the iPhone 5 is expected to arrive. It's entirely possible that the next iPhone (and its iOS companions) will utilize
