‘Who wants a stylus?’ — Steve Jobs famously mocked them, but Apple Pencil support could be the iPhone Duo’s secret weapon
It’s been a long road for Apple to get here
by https://www.techradar.com/author/graham-barlow · TechRadarFeatures By Graham Barlow Published 9 September 2026
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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 you’d 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.
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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 Pencil’s 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 iPad’s port at some point. It also had no built-in way to attach securely to the iPad for storage.
In terms of Apple’s design failures, the original Apple Pencil is right up there with the Apple Magic Mouse, which has the charging port placement underneath, so it can’t be charged and used at the same time. Amazingly, that’s 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 iPad’s Lightning port (such a bad idea) it attached magnetically to the iPad’s side, where it effortlessly paired, charged wirelessly and stayed stored. That eliminated both the precarious protruding connector and the removable cap.
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