Coming soon to the iPhone – copy and paste
By Erna Mahyuni
Copy and paste might soon come to the iPhone, with the help of a new app that is still waiting to be approved by Apple’s App Store. Why all the fuss about such a simple feature? And why, for all Apple’s slickness, it didn’t incorporate such simple features into the most talked about mobile phone of all time?
TechCrunch had the scoop on Proximi’s new app, the MagicPad. The app is pretty much a souped-up version of “Notes” and besides copy and paste, it lets users customize font type, size and color. Of course you’ll be using the onscreen keyboard with deft finger swiping to do all the copy and pasting; just move those magic fingers and use the menubar.
But copy/paste is only going to be available within the app itself; no transferring data between apps. But does this mean true copy/paste will never come to the iPhone? Not so, says Apple’s Greg Joswiak who says that it’s something Apple will get around to, but it’s not a priority.
For an early preview, have a look here.
Despite Joswiak’s comments, rumours persist that copy and paste just might make it into the next update – iPhone Software 2.1. The more interesting possible addition with the update is better GPS with new Core Location features, incorporating tracking of direction and speed. New Push Notification APIs are also supposedly in the works and of course, purportedly, cut, copy and pasting.
All this fuss over copy and paste? Sometimes it boggles the mind what gets the fanboys attention. In the first place, the iPhone is a phone. Not a mini computer. You’re still going to be able to make calls on it and the absence of said feature isn’t going to bother its operation, will it? Perhaps Apple decided to stick with its priorities – to turn the mobile phone market upside down is an achievement enough for them not to bother about little niggles like copy and paste.
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Stumble It!
August 9th, 2008
I’m sorry, but Copy/Paste is ESSENTIAL! BlackBerry has it. Palm has it. Are they competing for a business smart phone or an iPod with a phone glued in?
I spend a lot more time browsing and using e-mail than I do on movies/music, and to be able to move text from one screen to another without first writing it down on a piece of paper, is just necessary. I’ll be returning my iPhone 3G later today and getting a BlackBerry for this reason…