Pens: A New Trend in Smartphone Industry


As Apple and LG are to roll out new smartphones featuring a pen, a full-scale competition over pens is looming among major smartphone producers.

Pens are hot in the smartphone industry. A full-scale competition over pens is expected to start among major smartphone makers. Apple, which will launch new products this fall following Samsung Electronics' new premium smartphone Galaxy Note 9, is expected to take the wraps off an exclusive pen for a premium iPhone model.

Recently, IT media outlet McRumors and market researcher TrendForce reported that a dedicated pen will come out with an iPhone premium model to be launched this fall. In the past, Apple only launched Apple Pencil, a pen exclusive for the iPad.

Apple is expected to launch a pen exclusive for a 6.5-inch AMOLED iPhone model. In addition to this model, Apple is expected to release 5.8-inch AMOLED and 6.1-inch LCD iPhone models, too, but the two are expected to come without a pen.

Apple is expected to support the pen function on the 6.5-inch AMOLED display iPhone model, it will inevitably pit this product against the Galaxy Note 9, which began to receive pre-orders on August 13. In addition to supporting a dedicated pen, the new Apple model and the Galaxy Note 9 have more in common -- The two models are high priced (more than one million won), have a high storage space of 512GB and are loaded with large displays (a 6.4-inch display for the Galaxy Note 9 and a 6.5-inch display for the new iPhone to be launched this fall).

In the duel over pens between the new Apple model and the Galaxy Note 9, the latter can dwarf the former in terms of their fan bases. The Galaxy Note series has built a solid fan base with the S Pen and the launch of the Galaxy Note 9 has been fueling consumers’ interest in its new and advanced S Pen a great deal. "In particular, smartphone stores are receiving many inquiries about the Galaxy Note 9 and most of them are about its S Pen,” said an official of the mobile telecommunication industry.

A customer can start an application, remotely control the camera of the Galaxy Note 9 and changing pages of a presentation by pushing the button of S Pen loaded with the Bluetooth function. In addition, Samsung will soon release the SDK (software development kit) for S Pen to support S Pen with more features.

LG Electronics is promoting its mid-priced model Q8 by loading the model with an exclusive pen. The pen features functions such as memos, pop memos and coloring books as well. "Among non-premium phones, the Q8 is well received by consumers," said an official of the mobile phone industry.

Hanset makers have been introducing pens for smartphones one after another because pens can differentiate smartphones’ functions in the current market situation where smartphones are upgraded to advanced multimedia devices. As the use of smartphones has expanded into work, study and watching media contents going beyond simply making calls and sending texts, pens come in handy more greatly for smartphone users.

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