I have mercilessly ridiculed products like the Samsung Galaxy Note and the Microsoft Surface for including a stylus. Here’s why.

When a manufacturer ships a product, they include everything they feel you absolutely need to make the device work as they intended. My belief is that by including a stylus, the company is telling you they have done something wrong and the only way to properly interact with their device is with a stylus.

It made perfect sense to include a stylus with a Palm 10 years ago, but not anymore. We have come a long way since the stylus was a necessary accessory for the Palm. We have graduated to touch-enabled devices where a stylus is no longer required.

Is there a time when an iPhone or iPad user may want to use a stylus? Absolutely. People may want to use a stylus when using games like Draw Something or artists may want to use one when drawing or painting on the iPad.

Those are individual use cases, not the majority. The way Apple ships the iPhone and iPad tells you that most people will use it out of the box with their fingers. That’s the way it’s intended to be used.

If a device comes with a stylus, ask yourself what they did wrong when designing the product.