It’s iPhone Duo Users Who Will Want a Stylus

Steve Jobs famously posed this question when he introduced the first iPhone in 2007. It was a jab at the other smartphones of the era with small screens that were better navigated with a skinny stylus than with a fat finger. 

Jobs quickly answered his own question. “You have to get ’em and put ’em away, and you lose ’em. Yuck! Nobody wants a stylus.” The iPhone’s giant-for-the-time display was best navigated with nature’s stylus, Jobs argued, your finger.

Fast forward two decades, and we’ve come full circle with Apple announcing the iPhone Duo, which is not only the company’s first foldable phone but also its first phone to support – gasp! – a stylus. 

In the case of the Duo, it’s not about the display being too small, but about having a display so large when unfolded that it rivals an iPad’s. The Duo’s inner screen is 7.6 inches, which is within an inch of the 8.3-inch iPad Mini. And on that giant iPhone screen (as well as the Duo’s smaller 5.4-inch outer display), you will soon be able to draw, sketch, tap, write and swipe with an Apple Pencil. 

In introducing the iPhone Duo at its fall event, Apple said that its new foldable will support Apple Pencil (with USB-C) later this year. A software update is needed to add pen support to iOS.

With the iPhone Duo starting at $1,999, perhaps the iPad-like pen support will help people justify the high price by viewing the Duo as two devices in one, acting as both a phone and tablet.

Senior Editor

Matt Elliott is a senior editor at CNET with a focus on laptops and streaming services. Matt has more than 20 years of experience testing and reviewing laptops. He has worked for CNET in New York and San Francisco and now lives in New Hampshire. When he's not writing about laptops, Matt likes to play and watch sports. He loves to play tennis and hates the number of streaming services he has to subscribe to in order to watch the various sports he wants to watch. See full bio