With the fourth model, the Apple Pencil strategy finally makes sense

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996 one of the first things he did was drastically streamline the company’s product portfolio. Slashing over 70 percent of the company’s products, everything was focused on a simple 2×2 grid: pro/consumer on one axis, desktop/portable on the other. Among other things, he argued that if consumers don’t know which product to buy, there are too many products.

Obviously, Apple is in a very different place today. It’s many times larger and competes in many more markets (both product markets and territorial markets). While it’s arguable that Apple makes too many products today, one could scarcely argue that it has too many Apple Pencils. There are four. Four!

Apple Pencil (x4)

It wouldn’t be crazy to suggest that Apple doesn’t even need to be the one making styluses for its tablets—just build the frameworks and let the accessory makers take care of it. But it’s hard to argue that Apple really needs more than one. And if it’s going to have more than one, they should have different names, right?

But no, Apple has three styluses all named “Apple Pencil” and just added a fourth (albeit with a different name). Apple has a whole page dedicated to helping you figure out the dizzying compatibility matrix and different features. This one has pressure sensitivity but that one doesn’t. These support double tap, those charge wirelessly, and so on and so forth.

And since several are called “Apple Pencil,” Apple has to differentiate them with parentheticals. What’s next, Apple Pencil (Taylor’s Version)? Would it have been so hard to give them really different names? “Number 2 Pencil” was right there!

Some of the new models were necessitated by iPad product design changes, but that just means Apple’s product teams didn’t work together closely enough to plan ahead.

Fortunately, we’re about to have just two distinct styluses from Apple, with clear naming, features, and compatibility. Apple has stopped selling the iPads that necessitate the original Apple Pencil and Apple Pencil (2nd generation). It only has to keep selling those two Pencils to support customers who might buy them for their older iPads. Over time, that will become less of a concern, and the products can be buried five layers deep in the accessories section of the store.

Pencil and Pencil Pro

Once the new M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro become available next week, those will be the only iPads to support the new Apple Pencil Pro. Hey look, they changed the name a bit by adding Pro to it! A nice clear distinction of both features and compatibility.

Now that the 9th-gen iPad is no longer sold (outside the refurb store), the original Apple Pencil with its Lightning connector is no longer needed, except to support those with older iPads. Same with the 2nd-gen Apple Pencil, which will not support the new iPad Air and iPad Pro (and Apple’s no longer selling the old models outside of its refurb store).

That leaves just a single Apple Pencil that supports every iPad Apple sells, and an Apple Pencil Pro that adds a bunch of features and only supports the higher-end iPads. If you only consider iPads in the current lineup and not older models no longer sold new, the Apple Pencil lineup finally looks clean and clear.

Two styluses, with a clear distinction between compatibility and features, and a clear naming convention to match. It’s about time, Apple.