The stylus

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I have mercilessly ridiculed products like the Samsung Galaxy Note and the Microsoft Surface for including a stylus. Here’s why.

When a manufacturer ships a product, they include everything they feel you absolutely need to make the device work as they intended. My belief is that by including a stylus, the company is telling you they have done something wrong and the only way to properly interact with their device is with a stylus.

It made perfect sense to include a stylus with a Palm 10 years ago, but not anymore. We have come a long way since the stylus was a necessary accessory for the Palm. We have graduated to touch-enabled devices where a stylus is no longer required.

Is there a time when an iPhone or iPad user may want to use a stylus? Absolutely. People may want to use a stylus when using games like Draw Something or artists may want to use one when drawing or painting on the iPad.

Those are individual use cases, not the majority. The way Apple ships the iPhone and iPad tells you that most people will use it out of the box with their fingers. That’s the way it’s intended to be used.

If a device comes with a stylus, ask yourself what they did wrong when designing the product.



  • Michael Adams

    Maybe they’re just trying to copy the Newton? ;)

  • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

    Because they’re aiming towards that lucrative UPS delivery-guy market?

  • gjgustav

    Exactly it. Android fans always fall back to the drawing example and it’s invalid as it’s only a niche. You might as well criticize Samsung for not including an infrared module because some people might want to use it as a touch screen remote control.

  • http://twitter.com/Alex_Ramadan AlexRamadan

    That might be true for the iPad, it wasn’t meant to be used with a stylus but not every tablet wants to be exactly like the iPad. Maybe Microsoft has designed, and intended for it to be used with a stylus.

  • Leukotriene

    I agree 100% that Apple should not ship a stylus with the iPad. In the same way that shipping a Bluetooth keyboard with the iPad, it would encourage app developers (and users) to assume that the accessory is always there.

    But there is something to the concept of digital inking. Wouldn’t it be nice if the iPad was built with a higher resolution digitizer for a separate stylus that Apple themselves made? It wouldn’t be intended for most iPad buyers, but neither is the Bluetooth keyboard. Stylus support would do wonders for the education market. You just can’t take physics notes without drawing diagrams, and that’s a giant PITA on a computer or iPad.

  • http://twitter.com/kerri9494 Kerri Hicks

    You know what they did wrong? They designed it for the segment of the population that doesn’t have WICKED SEXY FINGERNAILS. :-)

    Have you ever watched a woman with nails longer than, say, 4cm try to do anything particularly productive on an iOS keyboard? Almost every kind of input, except perhaps angled thumb-typing, is really hard. You don’t have a usable finger TIP if you have fingernails, you have a mushy finger PAD, which is crap for accuracy. Which is why I love my Android phone — it has Swype. I can type on it. And I use a keyboard dock for my iPad. I can’t type effectively at all on an iOS device with my 4mm fingernails.

  • mickroberts

    Including a stylus would also create fragmentation – something I think Microsoft will be discovering with the Surface in a big way. It will be VERY difficult to make an app that works well with all (or any) input methods – stylus, touch and physical trackpad/keyboard. It will be a mess. It always cracks me up when people see something like the Surface or Samsung Note and say “Why didn’t Apple think of that?” They probably did 8 years ago and nixed it way back then.

  • HeyNow819

    Nope, not even Apple includes everything you need. Go buy an Apple TV. All you get is a power cord. That won’t get you very far. You kind of need an HDMI cable or maybe even an Ethernet cable. Maybe you just left it on the table and just stare at it because you don’t know what to do. Since Apple didn’t give you an HDMI cable you don’t need one! You think the stylus is necessary to use the Galaxy Note or MS Surface? Nope, you can buy it and never use the stylus if you’d like. I know it’s crazy but you HAVE the fucking option to use it. Just like you have the option to buy and use a stylus for the iPad, or iPhone, or iPod Touch, or a even the fucking Next thermostat if you want. I don’t know about you but I love having options! I have the option to buy a razor and shave so I don’t look like a damn Sasquatch. Obviously the Note was popular enough that they are coming out with a new one. I don’t care for the Note, but millions of others would. I find it to be huge and slow and kind of ugly. But my 65 year old boss loves his. He looks at my iPhone and can barely read and type on it. But I have absolutely no problem doing either of those. God forbid a company comes out with a product Apple would never make. But thank the wonderful Lord for giving the man plenty of choices when he was shopping for a phone. Isn’t choice amazing!?!?

    Oh wait, sorry, after reading through more of this site I totally get where you’re coming from. It didn’t take long to realize you’re one of those douche-bags that thinks if its not done the way Apple does it, its stupid.

    PS When you play guitar don’t you get all of that beard sweat and oil all over the fret board?

  • http://twitter.com/nursegirlt Thea

    My Android user friends describe it as their tablets giving you everything you might need, while Apple nickles-and-dimes you by making you buy a bunch of accessory products (bluetooth keyboards, styluses, covers).

    I personally agree with mickroberts that the fragmentation issue is the reason why it’s better to design without accessories but then allow them to be added on by the user.

  • http://twitter.com/feju Felix Jung

    Jim, I don’t think Microsoft did something wrong with the product itself. I am sure that it is possible to use it only with your fingers. They are shipping the stylus with the device for the same reason they have a version running full Windows 8. They want to give you something that’s capable of everything. Nothings wrong with the device, but something is wrong or at least very different in their strategy, compared to Apple and now Google.

  • Richardbrooks

    … written by an engineer.

    Oh wait, you’re not. You are a blogger who thinks you know how to deploy a tablet.

    • adrianoconnor

      “Who yhinks you know how to deploy a tablet”

      What? Are you serious? By deploy I assume you mean ‘take it out of the box and press a button’? Yeah, good job we’ve got you with your elite skills to keep us safely running these magical IT devices that we can’t possibly understand. Oh, wait a minute…

      And, not that it matters, but I’m an engineer — a full-time programmer by trade (.NET, Objective-C, Java, Oracle etc) and previously a support technician (MCSE etc).

      The world is changing around you, but you just haven’t realised yet.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/CO36G2RP7H3Q43ZWVK4IQAQLAM Ronald

    I agree about the stylus. I think the same thing can be said about including a keyboard. When I first thought about the Surface, I thought the keyboard seemed like a neat addition. However, when I thought about it more, I realized that I don’t want a keyboard for my iPad. The reason I like my iPad so much is that it is a more personal experience. When I look at the Surface now, it looks like a junky version of a Macbook Air.

    On the stylus front, I agree that a tablet should not ship with a stylus largely because it allows the app and OS developers to get lazy with their UI design. One thing I wish Apple would do, however, is create an API for a stylus using bluetooth 4 that standardizes a way for using a pressure sensitive stylus. As much as I don’t think a stylus should be mandatory, there are definitely uses for it in drawing applications. I have an app that helps users learn to draw Asian characters, and a big complaint is the lack of pressure sensitive input leaves out part of the aesthetic of drawing the characters.

  • Bob

    I think this raises a good point which can be applied to Surface. Not only does it come with a stylus but it was introduced with two keyboard options. The keyboard is arguably the only innovative part of Surface. The problem with the keyboard is the Surface looks less like a tablet and more like a netbook at this point. I would not be surprised to see it lumped with the the netbook crowd and get lost in the shuffle. Apple is good at simplifying things and helping the consumer focus on the strengths that Apple has in their products. Keep it simple. Microsoft wants the Surface to be all things to all people. That is a common mistake. By including the stylus and featuring the keyboards in the introduction, they are only confusing the consumer. Not to mention the choice between ARM and x86. Oy vey! The Surface is not a well defined product.

  • Lukas
    “When a manufacturer ships a product, they include everything they feel you absolutely need to make the device work as they intended.”

    This reasoning makes no sense to me. Companies include stuff that isn’t strictly necessary for using the device all the time. Heck, Apple does it. They shipped iPods with docks and bags. They ship Macs with cloths (and stickers, for that matter). They used to ship freaking remote controls with their Macs! I have about a dozen of them, and never used a single one of them.

    Do you “absolutely need” these things? Of course not.

    “My belief is that by including a stylus, the company is telling you they have done something wrong and the only way to properly interact with their device is with a stylus.”

    Again, that makes no sense to me. The Galaxy Note runs Android. You can use it without the stylus. Samsung knows that. Everybody knows that. Nobody is telling anyone that “the only way to interact” with the Note is with a stylus. Same for Windows.

    Look, I know we all love to rant about devices with styluses. Jobs said that, if you see a stylus, they blew it. What he probably meant was that a stylus shouldn’t be the primary way of interacting with a device. Which is mostly true. What he likely didn’t mean (and if he did mean it, he was wrong), is that it’s a bad idea to offer a stylus as a secondary input device. It’s not a coincidence that most of us use pencils to draw, and not our fingers. Pencils are a fantastic invention. They’re great for doing precise work. Much better than our fat fingers.

    I also want to point out that you’re drawing a false equivalency between an actual pressure-sensitive pen (like the one that comes with the Note or the Surface), and the kind of capacitive stylus you can get for an iOS device. These are not the same thing.

  • http://ghall.tumblr.com Graham Hall

    I agree 100%. While I do use a stylus occasionally with my iPad for drawing, I realize that I am in the minority. I’m glad Apple doesn’t ship a stylus with the iPad, because it would be pointless. I do wish it was a little more stylus friendly, since using a stylus can be a little awkward at times, but if that comes at the cost of finger-usability, I’d rather not see it at all.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/HGKVCT6WEAPCLKA6TBYTZSMWK4 Philly

    What a ridiculous suggestion, I mean you could say a tablet comes without a stylus the company is telling you that they did something wrong and a stylus won’t work as well as it should.

  • http://twitter.com/mitchcalculated Mitch Flax

    The idea that we’ve completely figured out the ideal general input method is silly.

    http://mitchcalculated.blogspot.com/2012/07/anti-stylus-religion.html

  • obiwandreas

    It used to be that including something meant “Hey, you might find this useful!”, not “You absolutely need this.”

    I do agree, however, that including a stylus would encourage developers to rely on it too much, and am therefore glad that they did not.

  • Xpphre80

    As an engineering student I would love to be able to write my lecture notes with a stylus, pages and pages of calculations can’t be typed up in a word processor while the lecturer is talking and I would love to write up digital copies of my notes on the spot. A tab with a good stylus system would be amazing. I just have to work out which system works best and im going to buy. Never even considered owning a tablet before I considered the stylus for college.