Copy and paste on iPhones?!
June 17, 2009
• Copy or cut, then paste something. Copy-cut-paste is the probably the one feature that iPhone users have most clamored for, and no wonder - it’s essential on a modern-day computing device, and it’s something most other smartphones have had for years.
On the iPhone, Apple’s tied it to the same process used to move the cursor around in a text block - press your finger on the screen where you want the copy block to start until the magnifier shows up, then release. You’ll get a black bar that will let you copy and/or cut (depending on whether the text is editable), and paste if there’s data on the clipboard. To choose text, just put your finger on the delimiter at the end of the copy block and drag it where you want it.
You can cut/copy/paste almost any text or image, but there are some quirks. For example, you can only copy the complete text of an SMS message - no selecting specific sentences. In the case of text messages, you’ll want to be very careful what what you paste!
So you iPhone users are almost there, but not quite yet…
What’s next for iPhones??? What little goodies will you have in a year or two from now? An address book? Speakerphone option?? Change ringtones??? OMG can’t wait!
