Is Apple forcing users to abandon cut-and-paste on handsets?
I know this won’t be a favorable viewpoint, but I have to ask the same question that Matt Miller is asking: how big of a deal is it that there’s no cut-and-paste on the iPhone platform? I won’t argue the usefulness of such a feature, but in my year of iPhone ownership, I think I’ve really only missed cut-and-paste three or four times at most. Now don’t just answer off the top of your head: put some serious thought into your handset usage first. Of course, everyone uses their handset in different ways, so I expect opinions to vary wildly here.
As I sit and reflect on this "missing" feature, I find that it’s not really missing at all in the use cases I need it most. Certainly not on any regular basis. If I want to share a URL with someone, one of the most common times you want a cut-and-paste function, I simply use the "Mail Link to this Page" feature in Safari. I think the most recent instance of wanting cut-and-paste is when I wanted to e-mail a photo to Flickr. I couldn’t remember the e-mail address to send the image, so I had to hit the Flickr website and look it up. Cut-and-paste would have been handy there, but I worked around it and created a new e-mail contact with the e-mail address. Yup, I had to manually type it, but it’s a once and done thing. Now that I have "Flickr" as an e-mail contact, I don’t need to type it again.
Personally, I’m not missing the feature all that much and I wonder if Apple is really trying to get away from adding it at all. They drove consumers to abandon start abandoning floppy disks with the iMac ten years ago; are they at it again? If they are, can you live without "cut-and-paste"? Like millions of others, I have for the past year… all by Apple’s design. In fact, I suspect they’ll continue to improve the UI in situations where you might want to copy and paste data. Anyway, think it through and once you’ve arrived at your answer, hop over to Matt’s post: he’s taking a vote on the issue.
The only time I miss it is when I need to paste a link in a blog post.
Personally, I consider cut-and-paste a “must have” feature, I often need to copy a small section of a web page into an email to illustrate a particular point and not having this feature available simply isn’t an option.
If I can find or suggest any workarounds for the specific needs in the comments, I will. Having said that, I can’t help with copying links into blog posts for James.
Jason, if you need to copy a small section of a web page into an e-mail, you could nav to the page in Safari and zoom in so that only your particular point is showing. Hold the Home and Power button to take a screenshot and e-mail that picture from the Camera Roll.
It is extremely important for me, and forces me to keep paying for my windows mobile phone on sprint until I can do it with my iPhone. I realize not everyone needs it, but it’s really not that complicated.
Band-aid solutions, Kevin, band-aid solutions.
I used Copy/Paste at least a handful of times on Windows Mobile phones over the past few days including copying product serial numbers while installing programs.
I also use it a few times a day on emails and links. Things that sure, I can get by without it, but it’s not always as efficient.
But then again, this is comes back to my #1 reason for disliking Apple. I’m not into the “Apple way is the only way” mentality. I like having options and different methods of doing things.
What about passwords? Now that there are a number of password wallet type applications, how are users getting passwords from their password wallet into Mobile Safari (especially considering that apps quit when you navigate away from them)?
Not sure about copy paste, but I think Apple is trying to stick it to the carriers and get people to email pictures instead of using MMS.
James,
Just a quick question… if you think Apple is trying to force us away from CCP, what do you think they intend to accomplish? Is it just to mold us into a different UI paradigm, or is there something else you think they intend to accomplish?
It makes a big difference but folks don’t realize it because they don’t see what it is keeping from them. Right now the iPhone doesn’t support multi-tasking. With a few small exceptions (live URLs for instance) applications can’t talk to one another. This means that there is no way to share information between applications on the phone.
So what happens when you find a great article on the web and you want to save some text from it in your favorite notes application? Or what about the contact information you want to email to a friend? Or the URL that you want to add to a list manager?
Not having copy and paste leaves you without a lot of really great innovation that software developers could be making. I certainly hope that Apple sees this and adds Copy and Paste in the future. I think you’ll see a lot more power in your favorite applications if they do.
Marc Tassin
Ilium Software
http://www.iliumsoft.com
Great article. I just don’t think its a priority. I’d much rather that Apple devoted resources towards making Safari more stable, improving Exchange support so it is seamless, and keeping the iPhone environment stable and secure. Cut and Paste is way, way down on the features list for me, right next to MMS (SMS and MMS are the telecom’s last gasp at screwing consumers with exorbitant rates-they both need to die)
You make a good point. I’ve been frustrated from time-to-time that the feature isn’t there. Of course maybe Apple is simply training us to not need the functionality.
While on the topic of missing functionality. I’d like an app that would allow some quick keys to commonly used words. Like my own e-mail address for example. It’s a real pain to type my e-mail address over & over when there could be some quick key to use (similar to speed dial on a phone) for certain words I use a lot.
Why NOT have it though! It’s such a basic feature I was staggered it wasn’t there! However you spin it it’s still a missing feature like mms or video recording.
Still love the phone though, but it has a few annoyances like this. Of course how would you cut and paste anyway with the touch ui?
Emailing screenshots is a terrible solution to a problem that shouldn’t exist in the first place. Remember, not all iPhone users have access to unlimited data. In Australia, for instance, there are strict limits on the amount of data you can send/receive so sending a whole image as opposed to a few lines of text could end up costing a fortune.
To be honest, until Apple include simple features like copy and paste you just can’t call the iPhone a smartphone. I can’t even see the point of trying to work out whether this is a good thing. Why don’t they just try and ween you off typing, or dialing numbers.
To me cut and paste is a feature that I always use on my Blackberry Curve all the time. Either for passwords, text, etc… makes everything much easier. I think iPhone needs some kind of cut and paste or maybe Steve at Apple will soon say “we need cut and paste” maybe he will admit that he was wrong in not having cut and paste like he sent out a letter to Apple employees saying that it was to much to lunch MobileMe. Here is a good sample why you need cut and paste.
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2008/08/05/jobs-jumps-on-the-mobileme-fail-bus/
From the memo to employees using cut and paste
“It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store. We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.”
Good golly, this is such a fundamentally basic issue that shouldn’t even be discussed. Of course there should be cut and paste. How much more difficult to code would cut and paste be than coding the network and email capabilities, for example. Or even the Safari code itself. I agree this is one thing Apple needs to get done ASAP. It’s a no-brainer.
Cut/Paste is one of the largest areas lacking on my Smartphone when I moved from a WinMo touchscreen to non-touch screen. Huge pain.
I do not know why is a big issue. I use it once in a while and it really helps having. That been said I did ask some programmers how difficult to create this, and their response was the same not at all and they did not understand why that simple code would be missing.
I do not know why is a big issue. I use it once in a while and it really helps having. That been said I did ask some programmers how difficult to create this, and their response was the same not at all and they did not understand why that simple code would be missing.
I use copy/paste on my N800 all the time. I don’t like companies telling me what I need.
Being able to email stuff to evernote and google docs resolves a lot of uses for copy/paste. But what happens when you want to get information OUT of your repositories and into another program?
I think CCP is an absolute must-have. It’s lack is probably one of the reasons why Apple hasn’t (yet?) opened the Bluetooth stack to connecting with external keyboards. You’d *really* miss CCP then!
“That been said I did ask some programmers how difficult to create this, and their response was the same not at all”
Uh, were they Multi-touch UI experts? More to the point, were they Apple Multi-touch UI experts? Everyone is an expert at someone else’s problems, when they aren’t actually tasked to solve them :p
it sounds like to me James & Kev are making a bunch of excuses for Apple. these alternative solutions offered so far are absolutely terrible, why in the world should anybody have to go through that much trouble?
unfortunately for Apple, this is 1 of the reasons the iPhone is still quite laughed at by corporate IT departments all over the world & thought of primarily as a child/teens toy. to be missing such a fundamental feature in the hopes they can retrain a society is laughable. no doubt they will eventually back down from this latest gaff in their long line of gaffs like they did when they finally released a 2-button mouse.
they are like an old arrogant man that hates to admit he’s wrong. which leads to stubbornness to change their ways although eventually they always back down & do it anyways. but they dont care about how everyone had to suffer along the way.
Well here’s where we come into the iphones achilles heel in the corporate market. On WM you had office programs that you could use. Personally I used to write patient encounter notes and entire reports on my WM devices before I got my P1610, I’m talking about reports 4-5 pages in length. Although a hardware keyboard is faster than the iphone, the handwriting recognition is even faster, allowing me to write multiple reports on a daily basis.
It’s funny that even after the Newton, that Apple did not try to put handwriting recognition into the iphone. It really is the best solution if you just practice it, and of course if the hardware (ie screen, sensitivity, software recognition). I have no doubt that 10plus years after the Newton that Apple would have done an awesome job of implementing this.
Which brings me full circle to the achilles heel of the iphone in terms of corporate customers, and that’s the lack of office programs, but even greater is the lack of a viable text entry system which is the main disease, the lack of office programs mainly being a symptom of that. The lack of copy/paste being another symptom, ie: how the hell do you select the text to copy? Finger selection seems much too broad.
I don’t think the iphone will ever be taken seriously, at least in the corporate world, until that is taken into consideration. For me yes I have an iphone now, but I also use my mini-tablet to take notes and handwrite reports, otherwise I wouldn’t have switched.
Last year, John Gruber compared the copy/paste situation on iPhone to the arrow keys situation on the original Mac.
http://daringfireball.net/2007/08/clipboard_and_arrows
I think that’s a fair comparison. It forces developers to take advantage of the features of this new platform rather than simply port what they’ve done before. As John Gruber mentioned, Apple did eventually come out with Mac keyboards which have arrow keys, but only after the Mac UI had matured.
The iPhone is a new device with a new UI. Apple doesn’t have to come up with copy/paste as we currently know it. They have to come up a way to provide currently missing functionality, but saying that it must be copy/paste is to specify implementation. They may have something more iPhone-like up their sleeves. (Or they may not.)
I used it 5-6 times today on my device. Its not the number of times that I used it…it’s the importance of having it when I needed it! Generally Apple does a very good job of predicting user needs and telling them that’s all they need…clearly they have missed this one.
I can’t blog with my iPhone because I can’t cut & paste URLs…
I can blog with my N95 since I can cut & paste URLs!
(A Bluetooth keyboard is pretty much required with the N95, though – but here again, I can’t pair a BT keyboard with my iPhone – why?)
(Begin sarcasm)
Hmmm, no cut & paste. That’s annoying!
What’s next, no multitasking? Oh, wait…
[End sarcasm]
Poor Kevin… this is just the Apple effect. First, you admit a feature missing is a bad thing.
Next you claim it isn’t something you miss.
Then comes claiming not having the function is a good thing or a bold step.
Finally, Apple will add the feature at last — and you’ll start lauding them for it or accusing other companies of copying the feature from Apple.
I have nothing against the iPhone, but I copy/paste on my mobile all the time. It is invaluable when you want to move information from one app to another.
I’m gonna have to agree with others and state that you’ve had too much in the way of Apple Kool-Aid for your own good. The lack of copy-paste is a BAD thing, and not like the migration away from floppy discs at all, since floppies were replaced by CD-ROMs and thumb drives. Copy/Paste is replaced with what? Nothing?
I wonder what Apple will come up with next. Maybe leave out the second mouse button? After all, how often do you need that one.
The iPhone was never meant to be a notebook computer. You whiners just don’t get it. It’s a PHONE not a NOTEBOOK COMPUTER !! Rumor has it that Apple is actually working on a device that blurs the line between a phone and a netbook, sounds like that is the Apple device that you guys need.
Johnny Appleseed…I challenge the assertion that we don’t get it. Maybe Apple doesn’t get it. A device as powerful as the iPhone is bound to be taken as more than just a phone. Cut/paste is simply ingrained in the user’s expectations for a device of this caliber. Again, normally Apple is very good about predicting user expectations and to me it seems they missed on this one. The device should be what the consumer expects it to be. No whining, just an observation.
My Blackberry Curve is no computer but it sure has Copy/Paste that I can use.
“The lack of copy-paste is a BAD thing”
Uh, did you read the article? Some of us don’t consider the lack a “BAD thing”. Some of us just don’t “copy paste” on our phones. Sorry to disappoint you. I love how Kevin is being attacked for being “Apple fanboys” just because they don’t use a feature that isn’t there, and don’t really miss it. Newsflash, a lot of iPhone users have used the iPhone for over a year, without copy/paste, and have done just fine.
Not sure what you guys are all doing with your phones where its a “necessity” you use “all the time”, but hey, more power to you and your other phones. Just get over yourselves.
LACK of copy/paste is a FEATURE of the iPhone. It’s something the other smartphones don’t have. Next thing is all the smartphone companies will be removing copy/paste to copy the iPhone.
On the serious side, the iPhone will have copy/paste in due time. Rumor has it that copy/paste will show up in iPhone firmware 2.1 if that can be believed. So meanwhile, sing the song “She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes….”
Not just that… Why Safari doesn’t allow the option to “open link in new tab”??????????!!!!!!!!
I use copy and Paste as a functional part of my day. I do all of my scheduling through my phone, with the name, place and phone # attached. These appointments do not occur on a routine schedule. The only work around offered by the apple geeks was to move the appointment to another day by continuiously changing the date and time. Then I would have lost my log of appointments. Not acceptable to me.
While I’ve only had a few times when I really needed to copy and paste text or something else,copy and paste is only a function of a much larger issue. The bigger problem is designing a mechanism for selecting items or high-lighting text so that a function or action may be performed on it/them one of which may be to copy text, or change font size, etc. And this mechanism must be system wide.
This can be fairly easily implemented on the desktop because there are content designated areas and the mouse pointer was designed for clicking and selecting. On the iPod/iPhone this becomes a little more complex because the main uses of touch are for clicking and panning/scrolling.
Apple would need to create new gestures, rewrite views to handle them, develop a system for presenting user selectable actions and create a system wide clipboard.
…just to add a few things.
Until the iPhone all smart phones basically adopted desktop user interfaces in their implementation of touch screens. Like I mentioned above, the user input device (the stylus) was mainly designed for clicking (selecting) and dragging (moving items or selecting text). The fact that scroll bars are still present demonstrates that.
The iPhone uses a completely different interface than a desktop and as such doing “things” ain’t as easy as some people would like think it is. Apple is in the process of inventing a new interface and ways to interact with it. In time, they will develop a solid solution.
People who think that is “unacceptable” don’t have to use an iPhone and can choose some other phone. But like I mentioned above, my need for it right now isn’t that great, so the iPhone works just fine for me (although I can’t wait for PNS to go live so I can have AIM online).
P.S. The same thing goes for allowing background processes-as devices get more powerful (batteries as well), I’m sure Apple will begin to allow 3rd parties to create their own as well. Although I’m sure Apple will build in some way to give the user an option to allow (or not) an application to install a background process.
Someone said “You whiners just don’t get it. It’s a PHONE not a NOTEBOOK COMPUTER”.
Possibly the worst argument ever put forward here. Do you think Apple designed it as ‘just a phone’ or as a feature rich multifunctional device with third party blogging tools, evernote, location based apps, etc. Cut and paste would be handy in certain situations, as would ‘open in new tab’ as someone else mentioned.
Actually, forget cut and paste. It’s not needed anymore when you can have this instead:
http://appcraver.com/i-am-rich-iphone-application/
If Apple could have copy and paste in their computers in the early eighties, then there’s absolutely no reason why they can’t have such a BASIC function in the iPhone today.
Given how complex the iPhone is and the amazing things it can do, it a VERY DUMB error on Apple’s part to not have this facility in there.
There are so many times when I’ve wanted to use this facility on my iTouch.
The ability to have bluetooth keyboards working with the iPhone would be good too…again a pretty basic thing but I’d be happy with the copy and paste above all else.
Cheers!
Jon
If Apple could have copy and paste in their computers in the early eighties, then there’s absolutely no reason why they can’t have such a BASIC function in the iPhone today.
Given how complex the iPhone is and the amazing things it can do, it a VERY DUMB error on Apple’s part to not have this facility in there.
There are so many times when I’ve wanted to use this facility on my iTouch.
The ability to have bluetooth keyboards working with the iPhone would be good too…again a pretty basic thing but I’d be happy with the copy and paste above all else.
Cheers!
Jon
>>>they are like an old arrogant man that hates to admit he’s wrong. which leads to stubbornness to change their ways although eventually they always back down & do it anyways.
Overblown. You probably also believe they put out the iSDK due to “public pressure.” The SDK was planned all along. CCP will come when they’ve figured out the most elegant way to do it. You seem to forget that the solution they come up with has to encompass more variables than any of us are likely to think about.
The MagicPad guys have suggested a solution:
http://magicpad.proximi.com/video.php
I’m not sure yet if I agree with it. It seems inside the box.
The lack of copy/paste on the iphone is incredibly annoying. It is one of the many reasons I really don’t like my iphone.