Apple made a stylus for its first folding iPhone, tested it internally, and then decided you likely shouldn’t have it. The company prototyped a shorter Apple Pencil designed specifically for the device, according to Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter, and got far enough along to weigh selling it as an accessory.That launch now looks unlikely to happen alongside the phone itself, which arrives at Apple’s September 9 event. The prototype was squatter than the iPad versions, sized to suit the shorter body of the folding iPhone, and it was designed to snap magnetically onto the side of the device for storage and charging, the same way current Pencils attach to an iPad.The side placement is where the idea started coming apart. A Pencil parked along the tall edge of a closed phone gets in the way every time you open it, including all the times you have no intention of drawing anything. You would end up peeling it off out of sheer habit.
Foldable displays are too soft for a hard stylus tip
The second problem is harder to engineer around. Foldable panels use a softer top layer than regular glass, and a stylus tip can leave visible marks on it, roughly the way a fingernail does. That is a difficult thing to defend on what will be Apple’s priciest handset. Samsung has wrestled with the same physics for years, which is why only specific S Pen versions are cleared for its folding Galaxy phones.For buyers, the loss is narrow but real. Anyone hoping the foldable would replace an iPhone and an iPad mini in one go, sketching included, will need to hold on to the tablet. Third-party capacitive styluses will still work, since they only imitate a fingertip, but precision is not what they offer.A Pencil could still turn up with a second-generation foldable once the display tech gets sturdier. For its first foldable, Apple plans not having one.