iPhone Copy-Paste Must be Implemented by Apple
Let’s say you just received a text message from a friend with the address of a restaurant you plan to meet at tonight. You’re in a hurry, so you’d like to quickly forward that info on to a friend. On a computer, you’d probably highlight that text, copy it, and paste it into an email. Yet, that simple ability to copy and paste a block of text is a concept that has eluded iPhone users since the device launched last summer.
Yes, it’s no mystery that iPhone users would benefit from copy-and-paste functionality. In fact, the feature frequently tops bloggers’ lists of most requested additions. So, now that we have this bustling App Store and hundreds of eager developers, why are we still forced to memorize and retype names and addresses?
John Casasanta, president of the iPhone app development company Tap Tap Tap, would love to build it, but with the tools Apple gives developers, it’s technically impossible. “Apple doesn’t really provide it in their SDK,” he said. “There’s no real way of doing copy-paste.”
That didn’t stop one developer from trying. One effort involved creating a framework for third-parties to build into their apps that would allow them to share text among a common repository. But because the ability would need the support of each individual developer, it wasn’t a feasible solution. “Ultimately, it wouldn’t really work for anyone because even if third-parties supported it, like even if you could have copy and pasted among two different third-party applications, if Safari and the Mail program … don’t support it, it’s pretty much useless.”
Having developed iClip for the Mac, an app that allows you to save multiple items onto a clipboard, Casasanta is probably the ideal candidate to bring copy-paste to the iPhone. But even if it were technically possible to implement, he says it probably wouldn’t be an overwhelming success. “I get a lot of people asking me if I’m going to do iClip for iPhone,” he said. “Even if it was [feasible to build], I don’t see it being a very big seller compared to some of the things that are a little more mainstream.”
Many iPhone users would probably disagree with Casasanta. (I would guess there’s a reason it tops most feature requests.) But it’s a moot point because this is one add-on that Apple won’t be able to push off on third-party developers to take care of.
Okay. Here’s a prediction. Apple is not going to listen to the feedback, and a few years from now, there’ll still be no copy and paste. The point is, in case you don’t know, Apple will not listen to its users, unless it is threatened with lost sales, or people moving to another platform. Take, for instance, the Hitler-like NDA’s forced on the iPhone developers. Do you really think that, without the prospect of developers shifting to Android, that Apple would have relented on the NDA issue? Apple will also not listen about matte screens, or Firewire. Why is Apple like this? Because Apple is like Steve Jobs, and Steve Jobs basically only listens to himself. Read the biographies on Jobs, and you’ll hear stories of him going absolutely beserk when people disagree with him. So, don’t hold your breath for any copy and paste feature. It’s not as if people haven’t been asking for this from day one.
@R The Hostile Monkey remembers when people “in the know” griped about Jobs “not listening” to them clamouring for floppy drives and PS2 ports.
He also remembers when nobody believed that iPod Touch’s mysterious “can’t make new calendar events” bug was just that, and that it would be rectified in due course.
The Hostile Monkey thinks that if you’re going to start playing a game of Kremlinology with Apple, you should at least know your history of what they’ve actually done, not what a bunch of authors say to sell books.
Hostile Money!
I am a Mac user since the early 512K model, the 2nd model following the first 128K model. So I’ve been around.
I make a difference between Apple taking the lead to make obsolete various features that, in the future, will no longer be needed. In this regard, I am not so perturbed by the loss of Firewire 400. I can just get a MacBook Pro.
However, I am livid about the loss of the matte screen. This is not a technological issue. Some people, like myself, need a non-reflective screen. Not because I do photography or graphics. It’s because I use my computer for many hours a day, in a well-lit room with sun streaming through the windows. I cannot tolerate the reflections and glare on the screen. This is nothing to do with technology moving on. It’s all about Apple wanting to have snazzy, shiny objects for sale.
Copy and Paste is definitely one of the most requested features for the iPhone. All of my visitors list that in their feature request lists. It’s unfortunate that its a fix that Apple will have to implement, because it is obviously not atop their priority list.
iPhone Features that we’d all like to see
[...] to a recent post at MacApper – iPhone Copy-Paste Must be Implemented by Apple. Copy and Paste is not a function that could be created by a 3rd party developer using the Apple [...]
For me no cut & paste = no sale. I can’t be the only one surely? My contract is up again and I’m going for a Blackberry Bold. iPhone would have been a nicer balance between work & play for me, but the lack of Cut & Paste limits my ability to use it for work purposes.
Fine, don’t add it, but until you do the iPhone is merely a toy to me.
Guru.
You actually can copy and paste between some applications on your iPhone… At least I can do… I have a jailbroken/unlocked device (I’m from Costa Rica) and by downloading the app called “CopierciN” provided in the Cydia repository by iClarified, you can copy and paste text between SMS messages, notes, contacts, even e-mails!! It worth to try it, because it is FREE!
JeffCR
Apple has claimed it’s on the list, but that other items have been taking precedence.
As John Gruber @ daringfireball has said, clipboard functionality is no small feature to add (not technically, but from the UX perspective). Once they do add it, they’ll married to it. Consider that the UX for desktop clipboard interaction (originally shipped in 1984) is still the de facto user experience in use later today, 24 years later — cmd-c/x, cmd-v.
Even the majority of Windows and X apps are using this convention.
Whatever Apple implements for Cocoa Touch’s clipboard user experience is going to be around for a long time to come, so it’s going to have be great enough to stand the test of time.
And, with respect to the assertions by R and Hostile Monkey, there is plenty of historical precedent for Apple having listened to peoples’ feedback. Examples:
* WebKit now has public source repository (they used to only make upstream commits after releases of Safari; now the live repo is viewable)
* Green initiative?
* Headphone jack on iPhone 3G.
Best regards,
jL
Dear the other Steve,
The basic concept not yet adopted by Apple is “type once” and then copy, paste, share, sync … then let the computer manage the data. Big steps have been made with the iPhone. My contacts and calendar info syncs fine over several PCs and Macs … just like 25 years ago when email resided on a central server along with key info and once updated always available. The stumble with copy-paste functionality is too big not to be based on unmentioned motives.
There must be a miniatureMAC in the planning. The iPhone is dumbed down, an interim device perhaps. Even in its dumb state it is easily configured to do most of what we need to do. Since you can use it as a front end for your networked computers, you can do all the copy paste and other work on them and transfer what is needed to the Iphone. i DO.
My iPiss flows when I receive a long serial number or activation Key by email and need to paste it into a browser window …. even a FedEx number. For that one failing alone I want Steve Jobs to sit on a bed of nails until it is fixed.
iNailed it, right.
Copy and paste is the most basic editing I would have expected. I moved from the Treo with high expectations and am disappointed that my new 3G iPhone does not have this basic feature my Treo had 4 years ago. I now understand this issue has been open for nearly a year and no fix/patch in sight. I am returning my phone within the 30 day period !!!
Well they lost this sale. I won’t get an iPhone because I regularly use copy/paste with my current mobile device and it’s not something I’m willing to do without.
how about a simple picture TEXT? people send me any type of multimedia message and i have to go to a website remember a random user name and password… all to not be able to forward to another person that i could ONLY imagine would have liked it as well. JOBS IS A CONTROL FREAK!!!
I sold all of my apple products, and have given up thinking the company was going to change it’s macdonalizational ways….
C’mon Steve… why no copy/paste? Did you lose a bet to Bill? Are you choked you didn’t come up with the idea first? You’re a smart guy and your team is brilliant. Why deny us this most fundamental and useful function anyway? I mean, what gives???
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