iPhone Duo Only Works With the $80 USB-C Apple Pencil, Not the $130 Apple Pencil Pro

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

It’s likely the iPhone Duo doesn’t support the Apple Pencil Pro because there’s no magnetic surface for charging the pencil. The Apple Pencil Pro charges magnetically when connected to a compatible iPad, while the Apple Pencil with USB-C charges with a USB-C port hidden behind a sliding cap.

Charging is the least of the problems. Because the Duo doesn’t have the magnetic attachment for Pencil Pro, there’s no way to even pair a Pencil Pro. The easiest way to think about it isn’t to compare which devices support which features (like pressure sensitivity, or double-tapping) — it’s just to think about which devices can even pair with which Pencil models. Unless I’m missing an exception in Apple’s compatibility support document, if a Pencil-compatible iPad or iPhone can pair with a certain Pencil’s connector, then it can use that Pencil. The iPads with both the magnetic attachment point and USB-C can use either the Pencil Pro or regular Pencil, and the devices without the magnetic attachment can only use the regular Pencil.

But the bottom line is that Apple’s entire Pencil compatibility story remains a mess. Imagine you own an iPad Pro and a Pencil Pro, and you love using the Pencil. You’ve always wanted to be able to use a Pencil with your iPhone. Now you can, if you buy a Duo. But you also have to buy a different Pencil — and then pack two different Pencils whenever you leave the house with both your iPad and iPhone. That’s ridiculous.

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