> Which is to me another one of those ingenious but now obvious design choices ... I wish that Microsoft had thought of this for the surface pen.

I'm kind of glad they didn't. A pen magnetically attached will likely pop off when you put the tablet in your bag. It's a nice place to dock the pen when you're using the tablet, but poor place to store it in a bag.

People report up to a year of life with the Surface Pen battery. Swapping it out when it dies seems simpler than remembering to charge it regularly.

Yup. I've used tablet PCs since the Windows XP Tablet Edition days and magnetic pen docks have always been a big no-no. The pens fall off more when handling because you bump into them when repositioning and they're easier to forget or 'lose' because the docking area generally becomes the one place you don't put it. In short, it might be counter-intuitive, but you need to be slightly more engaged with the stylus's maintenance than most people think. Too cumbersome and it impedes productivity, but too 'intuitive' and it will be lost in a week. But, I'm sure Apple will be happy to sell you a replacement!

I've had a Surface Pro 3 since release and have had to replace the stylus battery twice, so I'm getting ~1.5 years per battery. I would much prefer the old hidey-hole stylus dock to Apple or MS's current stylus docking.

"Hidey hole" means you have a bunch of wasted space in your device and encourages them to make the pen tiny, though. I much prefer the independent (and full sized) stylus. I rarely use the magnetic docking, though.

I fully agree about the pen falling off when bumped. I can't imaging Apple solved that since it seems like a fundamental side effect of the design.

> A pen magnetically attached will likely pop off when you put the tablet in your bag.

The surface pen already magnetically attaches to the surface, this would just give that attachment another purpose.

> Swapping it out when it dies seems simpler than remembering to charge it regularly.

You don't have to remember anything, you just "redock" the stylus when you're done using it and it will charge.

> The surface pen already magnetically attaches to the surface, this would just give that another purpose.

I'm aware. But it's not "just another purpose". It's a different design. A battery that needs charging is a fundamentally different design choice than a battery that needs replacing. I'd rather a disposable battery that lasts for a year than a rechargeable battery that lasts a week.

> You don't have to remember anything, you just "redock" the stylus when you're done using it and it will charge.

And then you shove your tablet in your bag and the pen falls off. The pen languishes in the bottom of the bag until the next time you want to use it, when it may or may not still be holding a usable charge.

A pen that needs to be stuck to the side of your device regularly is fine for a device that sits on a desk all the time. It's less clearly beneficial for a device that gets handled constantly and goes into and out of bags.

>I'd rather a disposable battery that lasts for a year than a rechargeable battery that lasts a week

The science isn't quite there yet with those uranium batteries

Unless the Note series has changes dramatically, which is always possible -- I just ditched my Note 3 -- they're using passive Wacom pens. No charging necessary, the internal slot is purely for storage.

This was definitely still true through the Note 8; but the Note 9 S-Pen has an onboard battery (mostly, I think, for the remote functionality; the core stylus functionality might use the same tech as before.)

The Note9 added bluetooth to the S Pen (you can use it as a remote camera shutter now), and it charges inductively when it's inside the phone.

I figured that'd be the case, but still disappointed.