Not including a stylus with the iPhone and the iPad was brilliant from a marketing perspective. And not in a bad way by any means. It educated developers. It ta

Not including a stylus with the iPhone and the iPad was brilliant from a marketing perspective. And not in a bad way by any means. It educated developers. It taught everyone that if a UI requires a stylus then there's something wrong with it. The problem is that this idea shouldn't be taken to its logical extreme. Steve Jobs’ phrase "If they include a stylus, they did it wrong"—or was that Bob Marley?—is analogous to "If your website requires a keyboard, it's broken". That is, it's a good design principle but you obviously don't want to apply it when the user wants to enter text (in your website) or scribble a note (in your tablet app). So insofar this article points out that it's easier to write notes using a stylus than using a finger, it's kicking in a wide-open door. But I'm not convinced that it's easier to use a stylus than a finger to tap buttons. Unfortunately this article doesn't go into this issue. In fact, it unnecessarily obscures it: "Try taking a screenshot, scribble some notes on that, and email it. Do it on a touch-only device, and then try it on the Note II. You will see the difference." Mind you, I would love it if the iPad had support for styluses. I can definitely think of an application or two that would benefit! What I don't want, though, is to end up wondering where I put my stylus all the time.