Foldable iPhone had a Pencil in testing. The delicate folding screen got in the way.
That launch now looks unlikely to happen alongside the phone itself, which arrives at Apple’s September 9 event.
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. Apple made a stylus for its first folding iPhone, tested it internally, and then decided you likely shouldn’t have it. 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. 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.