Apple just announced a product that Steve Jobs famously hated

Apple has unveiled a product that Steve Jobs hated. That's right - it's building a stylus.

The late Apple cofounder's disgust for styluses was notorious. He once told his biographer Walter Isaacson that "as soon as you have a stylus, you're dead."

But times have changed! On Wednesday, Apple announced that is launching a new stylus to go with its iPad Pro.

It's called Apple Pencil. It can detect the pressure with which a user presses on the screen, and charges by plugging into the iPad Pro via Lightning.

 

Here's a picture:

And here's another of the nib:

It has been clear that this has been coming for a while. The Cupertino company has been granted a number of patents for stylus devices over the last few years. And Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with strong sources in Apple's supply chain, previously said the company would launch one this year.

A former Apple engineer also told Business Insider that the company has been testing multiple stylus prototypes as early as four years ago.

Tim Cook, who took over as CEO once Steve Jobs died, has never been afraid to go against what his predecessor said. Steve Jobs also resisted the idea of a larger-screened iPhone, saying "no one" would want one. But Cook released the super-size iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in the Fall of 2014, and it propelled the Cupertino company to have the most profitable quarter of any company ever.

"Who wants a stylus?!" Steve Jobs joked at a conference in 2007. "You have to get 'em, put 'em away, you lose 'em, yuck. Nobody wants a stylus." Apple is now betting otherwise.

Here's Jobs slamming styluses back in '07: