Apple Reportedly Built an Apple Pencil for the Foldable iPhone, Then Backed Away

Apple built an Apple Pencil for its folding iPhone, and then appears to have talked itself out of it. That comes from Mark Gurman's Power On newsletter for Bloomberg, published Sunday. He describes a stubbier Pencil, sized for a phone rather than an iPad, that snaps magnetically onto the side of the device to sit and charge there. Apple tested it. Gurman says it probably will not be announced next month, and probably is not going on sale at all.

Apple has confirmed none of this, and none of it is a product. It is one reporter's account of an internal prototype, and killing prototypes is a normal part of how hardware gets made. The reasons he gives describe why a stylus on a folding phone is hard before anyone gets near the software.

What Apple reportedly built

The prototype was shorter and stubbier than the iPad Apple Pencil, cut down to match a phone that is a lot less tall than a tablet. Rather than riding the top edge the way a Pencil does on an iPad, it would attach magnetically to the side of the foldable, and charge there too. Same trick Apple has used for years, moved onto a different edge.

The two problems

The first is where your hands go. On an iPad held in landscape, the Pencil parks on an edge you are not gripping. A folding phone does not have a spare edge like that. Gurman reports that holding the device with a pencil stuck to its side was awkward, and Engadget's summary of the newsletter notes the pencil could also get in the way when you open the phone.

The second is the screen. Gurman reports a concern that the Pencil could leave marks on the foldable's inner display. That is the panel that has to bend, which makes it the softest surface on the device and the one owners get told to be gentle with. A hard tip pressed into it a few thousand times is the sort of thing a hardware team loses sleep over.

Does a stylus on a phone make sense at all?

Steve Jobs mocked styluses on stage in 2007, Apple has sold Apple Pencils for years since, and that joke has been made. Moving on.

The more useful precedent is Samsung. It put S Pen support in its Galaxy Z Fold phones starting with the Fold 3 in 2021, then removed it entirely from the Galaxy Z Fold 7 last year. The reason was physical. The digitizer layer a stylus needs adds thickness, and dropping it let Samsung get the phone to 8.9mm folded and fit thicker protective glass over the flexible screen. Samsung decided the pen cost more than it gave back.

Then there is the carrying problem. A Pencil that lives on an iPad stays with the iPad, because the iPad goes in a bag. A phone goes in your pocket, and a second object you have to remember is a second object you leave on the counter. If you have owned a phone with a stylus, you probably know how rarely it came out.

None of which means a phone stylus is a bad idea. There is a real case for it: marking up a photo, signing something, sketching on a screen you already have with you. It just has to survive being carried, and it has to not scuff the most expensive part of the phone.

What to watch on September 9

Apple's event is set for Wednesday, September 9 at Apple Park, under the tagline "Surprise and Shine," and the folding iPhone, reported to be called iPhone Ultra, is what everyone is showing up for. Gurman does not expect the Pencil to be part of it.

That leaves the display itself as the thing worth watching: how Apple protects it, what the crease looks like, and what the care instructions end up saying. Apple reportedly would not trust its own pencil against that screen. That is worth remembering when the demo units look flawless on stage.