What we know so far: Apple is widely expected to introduce its first foldable smartphone in September, joining Samsung and a host of other companies in the emerging market for ultra-premium handsets. It's too early to know if Apple's foldable will be the must-have gadget of the 2026 holiday season, or if a prototyped accessory will even make it to market.
According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple has internally prototyped and tested a version of the Apple Pencil for its forthcoming foldable. The accessory is said to be stubbier than the version for the iPad due to the phone's height, and attaches using magnets for storage and charging.
A stylus for what is essentially a small tablet doesn't sound like a terrible idea, but there are drawbacks. Gurman said stowing the Pencil could get tricky when not actively using it. Perhaps even more concerning is the delicate nature of foldable displays. Most are manufactured using plastics, which can scratch just by dragging your fingernail across it. The last thing you want with something that fragile is a stylus with a pointy tip.
Then there's the principal of the matter. When Apple co-founder Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone in 2007, he famously said that "nobody wants a stylus." And thus, the iPhone has relied on touch inputs from the very beginning. Bringing in a stylus nearly two decades later would be a surprise, but Apple will be under new leadership by the time the iPhone Fold ships so it's not an entirely impossible outcome.
To be clear, Gurman doesn't think Apple will actually launch the accessory as a consumer product when the foldable debuts in a couple of weeks and neither do I. While it could be helpful to a certain subset of buyers, it's simply a bridge too far at this point. Foldable displays need to be much more robust to withstand the daily stresses introduced by a stylus, and the technology simply isn't there yet.
Apple is set to announce its folding iPhone at an event scheduled for September 9.