Sorry, I know this is borderline sacrilege for an iPhone user, but I really want a stylus to use with the iPhone. Don’t get me wrong – I love the multitouch interface, and find it superb to use for nearly everything I do on the iPhone.  But … there are certain tasks that are just […]
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I Want A Stylus for The iPhone!

Nov 17th 2007 by

Sorry, I know this is borderline sacrilege for an iPhone user, but I really want a stylus to use with the iPhone.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the multitouch interface, and find it superb to use for nearly everything I do on the iPhone.  But … there are certain tasks that are just not possible (for me anyway) with the on-screen keyboard.

Note-taking is the big one for me. With all my Windows Mobile devices I am very fast and efficient at taking notes just using a stylus and the built-in letter recognition software.  It took a little while (way back when) to get used to how to write letters so they’re recognized correctly, but once I had, I’ve always been much quicker using that method than any other, including Treos and their thumboards and even slide-out QWERTY keybclassic_stylusoards.  I’ve always been able to sit in a client meeting and take excellent notes – and have even had many clients ask for a look at my Axim or Treo or whichever device, and then ask for notes to be emailed to them.

There is no way I could even begin to keep up in a meeting with the iPhone’s keyboard.   And note taking – fast, competent note taking – is an important task in a variety of different situations.  With the iPhone, when taking notes I have to struggle to come up with ridiculous ways to edit things down on the fly so I need to type less, and basically either take poor notes or take much longer to get them done. 

I know that using a stylus is not part of Apple’s vision for how to use their baby, but hey – neither was running 3rd party apps or wanting to use ringtones not purchased via iTunes.  Adding a stylus seems a tremendously easy thing to do, and one that should not detract from the overall beauty of the iPhone’s design. And the handwriting recognition stuff should be easy enough, it’s been around for a lot of years.

Anyone who doesn’t need or like to work with a stylus could happily ignore it, even remove it and toss it aside if they like – but I would love to see this option included on a future iPhone model.

How about you?  Are most of you much faster keyboard typists, and able to take notes with that method? Anybody got any love for the good old stylus?

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