Apple's first foldable phone almost came with a stylus built specifically around its smaller form factor.

A new report details why that idea never made it to launch, even though supporting a pencil ended up being one of the phone's headline features anyway.

Apple Scrapped a Shorter Apple Pencil for iPhone

According to the latest Power On newsletter from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple had internally explored building a shorter version of the Apple Pencil specifically sized for the iPhone Duo before ultimately deciding against it.

The idea would have given the foldable phone a stylus tailored to its more compact dimensions compared to the accessories Apple already sells for iPad.

The report notes that Apple weighed the shorter design during development but chose not to move forward with it as the Duo neared its official unveiling this month.

Part of the reasoning tied back to how the accessory would actually be used day to day. A stylus scaled down specifically for the Duo's dimensions would have added another distinct product to Apple's lineup, one that would not carry over to iPad at all, complicating both manufacturing and the buying decision for customers already juggling multiple Pencil generations.

Rather than introduce an accessory exclusive to a single phone, Apple apparently decided it made more sense to lean on hardware it already had in production.

iPhone Duo's Dedicated Shorter Apple Pencil

Instead of a custom-sized stylus, Apple ultimately confirmed the iPhone Duo works only with the existing Apple Pencil USB-C model, the most basic and affordable option in Apple's current lineup.

That means buyers cannot pair the Duo with either the second-generation Apple Pencil or the Apple Pencil Pro, since both of those models rely on a magnetic strip along the side of an iPad to attach, charge, and pair, hardware the Duo simply does not include.

Apple has also said Pencil support will not be available immediately at launch, with the feature arriving later through a software update rather than being ready when the phone first goes on sale.

Is Apple Pencil Support Still Coming to Foldable?

This all traces back to an earlier report also from Gurman, who had indicated well ahead of the official reveal that Apple was working to bring Apple Pencil compatibility to its upcoming foldable iPhone.

That reporting came alongside broader coverage of Apple's management changes tied to John Ternus stepping into the CEO role, with the foldable device's stylus support framed as one of the notable hardware pushes happening under his watch.

The eventual announcement confirmed that reporting, even if the specific shorter Pencil concept never made it into the final product.

Apple Considers Stylus for Wider Screen

Speaking after the Duo's reveal, Ternus addressed Apple's long-standing resistance to stylus support, noting he never treated Steve Jobs' original no-stylus stance as some kind of unbreakable rule.

He said the Apple Pencil remains a genuinely useful tool for certain tasks, and that the Duo's larger inner display makes it a natural fit for that kind of precision input.

Since the Duo's screen still lags meaningfully behind a full-sized iPad in terms of surface area, it remains to be seen whether Apple eventually revisits a purpose-built stylus more suited to the phone's exact form factor, rather than leaning on an accessory originally designed for its tablets.