Apple is set to launch three iPhones this year, and the top two premium variants are expected to get support for the Apple Pencil. A fresh report suggests that Taiwanese stylus chip supplier Elan will be the Cupertino giant’s supplier this year, and this move is to drive adoption of the iPhone models. Apple has never supported a stylus on its phones before, with tablets and the MacBook being the only products that supported the feature. This move could also drive sales of the Apple Pencil as well.
Economic Daily News reports that the two OLED display variants incoming this year will get Apple Pencil support. This corroborates a recent report that suggested the same thing a few days ago, lending more weight to its legitimacy. The lower end LCD display variant is likely to miss out on this support, and this will be the highlighted difference between the OLED and LCD variants. Elan is like to be the stylus chip supplier, as mentioned above. It remains unknown whether the Apple Pencil will be bundled with the iPhones, or will be sold separately.
The report also states that currently only 10 percent of the market uses a stylus on a tablet or a smartphone, and most prefer to use a stylus on a laptop. However, that will reportedly change after Apple introduces Apple Pencil support for the new OLED iPhones this year. Other OEMs tend to follow Apple’s footsteps, and the next year could well be the year of the stylus (if this report is true that is).
In any case, if the new iPhones indeed get stylus support, it will directly compete with the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 which introduced a new S Pen that came with Bluetooth support for additional feature capabilities. Apple’s three variants are expected to be one 6.5-inch premium variant with an OLED display, another 5.8-inch iPhone X successor, and a 6.1-inch LCD variant which is expected to be priced relatively cheap. The prices of these three variants were leaked recently, and are expected to start between $699 (roughly Rs. 49,000) and $999 (roughly Rs. 70,100).
