One of the greatest strengths of the Galaxy Note phablet lineup is the fact that the S Pen is so good. It isn't just the fact the smartphone with a big display supports a stylus, or that the stylus just exists. Samsung has made sure that the S Pen offered new and worthwhile features, and, perhaps most importantly, was fun to use, too. It's a stylus that isn't terrible at writing, which is basically the most important thing.
And Samsung has managed to make the S Pen better, more worthwhile, with each new iteration. Lower latency and more features tied to the stylus. It's a great accessory, one that Samsung probably could sell separately and be okay with. But that's the other important bit: They bundle it right with the phone (and tablet).
Even Microsoft isn't bundling a stylus with its Surface Pro tablet lineup anymore. This still saddens me.
Other manufacturers have tried to include a stylus with a big-screened smartphone, but none of them have come anywhere near the success that Samsung has seen. It's a market that Samsung has on lock, but if the rumor mill is any indicator, it might be one that Apple jumps into at some point in the future.
Recently, a report cropped up that Apple was (once again) considering adding support for the Apple Pencil, the company's own stylus, into some future version of the iPhone. As noted above, this isn't the first time something like this has cropped up. But, as you already know, the iPad Pro is where the Apple Pencil works right now, and, considering Apple doesn't tease what's coming down the pipe, there's no real way of knowing right now if the company has any intentions of changing that status quo.
But, anything's possible, right? Apple could very well, one day, announce that the iPhone supports the Apple Pencil. The smartphone would more than likely be able to support writing a note on its display while its locked, just like we've seen on the Galaxy Note lineup, and like Apple has built into the iPad Pro lineup. Other note-taking and editing features would be baked in, of course, which could certainly make the use cases worthwhile.
I don't know if using the Apple Pencil with an iPhone is something I want to do, but only because the option to do it has never been there. I know that I do like the S Pen and the Galaxy Note lineup, though, so maybe if Apple did bring that support and functionality to its smartphone line it would work. But there's no universe where Apple bundles the Pencil with any iPhone.
What do you think? Should Apple add stylus/Pencil support to the iPhone lineup? Is this a feature you could see yourself using? Let me know!
