Will Steve Jobs' stylus comments come back to haunt Apple?

Apple’s iPad Pro is a larger-than-life tablet; it is the same height as an iPad Air, but offers a 12.9-inch display. It also comes with a stylus, something that the late CEO Steve Jobs criticised years ago.

At the initial iPhone reveal in 2007, Jobs said, “Who wants a stylus? You have to get em', put em' away. You lose them. Yuck." But it turns out that many people do want a stylus today. And Apple is willing to give them one.

He later cemented his position during the iPhone OS 4 event when asked about task management. “It's like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it. In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it,” he said.

When Apple announced its version of the stylus for the iPad Pro, which it calls Pencil, the crowd let out an audible laugh. The online reaction was instantaneous too with people taking to social networks to poke fun at Apple.

Of course, Jobs was speaking at a time when phone manufacturers were trying to make up for the limited capabilities of resistive touchscreens. And did he imagine that a mobile Apple product would one day be used for drawing and illustrating?

Apple is slowly leaving behind some of its traditional approaches, although one could argue that competitors like Samsung are forcing it to evolve. Samsung proved that consumers wanted larger handsets, and people have been getting used to the idea of using a stylus again in the years since Jobs made his bold statement.