Who wants a stylus? Steve Jobs famously mocked them, but Apple Pencil
support could be the iPhone Duos secret weapon

Date:
Wed, 09 Sep 2026 18:30:28 +0000

Description:
The new iPhone Duo supports the Apple Pencil, and that means Apple has
finally produced an iPhone with a stylus but would Steve Jobs have approved?

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter After watching Apple's iPhone Duo launch I was struck by one detail its support for the Apple Pencil .

When Steve Jobs launched the iPhone in 2007 he famously posed the rhetorical question Who wants a stylus?. His argument was that you already have the best stylus youd ever need with you at all times your fingers. Touchscreen displays have gone on to dominate smartphone and tablet design, and have proved far superior to the stylus as a way of navigating a software
interface; but the humble stylus has always had its advocates, and it has never really gone away. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here:

Some Samsung devices in particular can be used with a stylus the S Pen .
And, of course, Apple eventually capitulated and introduced the Apple Pencil for the iPad Pro, turning the tablet into a digital drawing pad for illustrators, artists and anyone who simply likes to sketch out ideas.

Perhaps I should clarify that Apple 's first successful stylus was the Apple Pencil (2nd edition), rather than the original Apple Pencil. The original Apple Pencil had a terrible design that meant you had to remove a tiny,
easily lost cap to charge it, and worse, the Pencils Lightning connector plugged directly into the iPad. That left the Pencil sticking precariously
out of the tablet, so it was easy to knock, and seemingly designed to snap either the connector or the iPads port at some point. It also had no built-in way to attach securely to the iPad for storage. You may like Quote of the day by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: 'There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share' a staggering misread of the
future of consumer devices Samsung just fixed the foldable phone now Apple can make it cool Everyone says John Ternus must fix Apple but the company isn't broken Sketching on an iPad Pro using an Apple Pencil 2. (Image credit: Apple) In terms of Apples design failures, the original Apple Pencil is right up there with the Apple Magic Mouse, which has the charging port placement underneath, so it cant be charged and used at the same time. Amazingly, thats still the current design of the Magic Mouse, but Apple quickly did something about the Apple Pencil.

The Apple Pencil was fixed with the second-generation, which was released alongside a redesigned iPad Pro in 2018. Instead of plugging directly into
the iPads Lightning port (such a bad idea) it attached magnetically to the iPads side, where it effortlessly paired, charged wirelessly and stayed stored. That eliminated both the precarious protruding connector and the removable cap. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me
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original sound TechRadar Turning in his grave? So would Steve Jobs really
be turning in his grave right now to know that Apples new phone works with
its stylus? Im not so sure.

I went back and watched the original iPhone keynote from 2007 . Talking about styluses Jobs said, Yuck! Who wants a stylus? You have to get em, put em away and you lose them. Nobody wants a stylus! [...] Were going to use the best pointing device in the world. Were going to use a pointing device that were all born with. Were born with ten of them, were going to use our fingers.
Were going to touch this with our fingers. iPhone 1 - Steve Jobs MacWorld keynote in 2007 - Full Presentation, 80 mins - YouTube Watch On Looking back, we can forgive him some of the hyperbole about the stylus at the launch of
the iPhone because he was introducing what, for many people watching, was previously unthinkable a way of using a screen-based smartphone that relied on just your fingers, and he had a battle to win people over and a point to make. In the broadest sense, he was right touchscreen displays have proved far superior to the stylus as a way of navigating an interface; but the
stylus has never really gone away. What to read next Apple Event 2026 live foldable iPhone Duo, plus AirPods 5, Apple Watch Ultra 4, and more Apple's late foldables arrival puts pressure on it to level up the category The real winner of WWDC 2026 was the iPhone Air heres why The iPhone Duos secret weapon Of course, back in Apples history there was another device that had a stylus, the Apple Newton MessagePad . It launched in 1993, came with a
plastic stylus for writing, tapping and using its much-mocked handwriting recognition software. Jobs killed off the Newton in 1998, shortly after his return to Apple. An Apple Newton MessagePad 2000 Apple generally called the Newtons stylus a pen, rather than giving it a standalone product name. So the Apple Pencil wasnt Apples first stylus. It was the companys return to pen input after Steve Jobs had famously ridiculed styluses when introducing the iPhone.

The Apple Pencil was introduced four years after Jobs death in 2015, but I think he would have approved. People genuinely seem to love the Apple Pencil, despite it still having some flaws (theres no eraser on the other end, for example) and it could even be the secret weapon in Apples new iPhone Duos success.

The fact that you can use the Apple Pencil with the new iPhone Duo
immediately locks Apples new foldable phone tightly into Apple's ecosystem of connected devices. The Apple Pencil is expensive, but a lot of iPhone Duo buyers will already own an Apple Pencil, because Apple households tend to
have quite a number of Apple devices already in them. (It would be wise to check which version of the Apple Pencil you own though, since the Apple press release only says the "iPhone Duo will support Apple Pencil with USB-C).

And thats what could make Apple Pencil support much more than another feature on the spec sheet. The iPhone Duos folding screen gives people a larger canvas, but the Pencil gives them a reason to use it for drawing, handwriting, annotating documents and editing photos with precision. Jobss real objection was to a stylus you needed simply to operate a phone; on the iPhone Duo, your fingers would still handle that perfectly well, and the Pencil would step in when it was genuinely the better tool. Far from turning in his grave, I suspect Jobs might have appreciated the distinction. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/phones/iphone/who-wants-a-stylus-steve-jobs-famously -mocked-them-but-apple-pencil-support-could-be-the-iphone-duos-secret-weapon


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