Everybody seems to be begging for Apple to put select, copy, cut, and paste into the iPhone and iPod Touch. But when you think about it… there isn’t much you really NEED it for.
Sure, sure, you want to copy and paste text in your word processor, to move a paragraph here and there. And, you want to copy some stuff out of an EMail to paste into a note. And, I might want to copy and paste stuff around in this WordPress blog post as I edit on my iPhone. But frankly these are not very common things to be doing on an iPhone. The things that you DO commonly need to do can be handled by other means.
Would you like to copy a picture out of a web page and save it? You can do that already. Touch and hold the picture, and a menu pops up offering to “Save Image” to your Photos application. Want to EMail a photo? Display it in Photos, touch an icon, and a menu pops up offering to EMail the photo, or to send it to a MobileMe gallery. No copying, no pasting, no problems.
It’s the same with many things you might be using copy/paste for on a lesser computer. Save the sender of an EMail message into a contact? There’s a menu command for that. Call a phone number you spot in an EMail or web page? Touch it and the iPhone offers to call the number in one step.
Enter the Data Detector
The last example, calling a phone number that is in an EMail or Web page by touching it, illustrates a feature in Mac OSX known as the Data Detector. The iPhone simply recognizes the text is a phone number, and turns it into a live link that, when touched, will offer to make the call. And this is much better than selecting the phone number, copying it to a clipboard, switching to the phone application, pasting it in to the phone keypad, and making a call.
We don’t need copy and paste so much as we need commands and data detectors to do the same tasks in a single step. We need Apple to expand the data detectors and to add some more commands.
Look, don’t worry. Apple is going to add select, cut, copy and paste into the iPhone. In some cases, we flat out need it. But why did Apple say adding this was a low priority? Because it is not going to be elegant. We need it for a fallback, but it might not be pretty.
How will the mechanics of selecting text work? What guesture will perform a “Copy” or “Paste”. It might take a bit of finger dexterity. It might take more than a sentence in a pamphlet to explain it. It might not be very intuitive. Apple hates this kind of stuff, as they should.
So the priority might be to put in a few more commands, a few more data detectors. This would handle many cases where you would be copying and pasting, intuitively and elegantly.
For example, if a phone number appears on a web page or EMail, data detectors recognize it and you can call it with a touch. But type a phone number into the Notes application (or any other) and it isn’t recognized. You can’t touch and call it. So my suggestion is allow this detection in all text fields.
Did you know that there are several data detectors in your Mac’s Mail application? In Leopard Mail, look at one of the EMail messages you’ve received, for a date and time anywhere in the message. Hover the cursor over it, and you will see a gray box appear around the date and time, with a little drop down triangle in it. Click that triangle and a menu appears – “Create New iCal Event…” and ”Show This Date in iCal” appear as commands. A date data detector recognized it and lets you do common tasks with it, no copy/switch/paste necessary. Try hovering over a name that’s in your address book. “Show in Address Book” is available. Over a phone number, you get “Create New Contact” and “Add to Existing Contact”, Hover over an address and you get those plus “Show on Map”.
This is the sort of thing I believe Apple is wanting to put in our devices. Elegant, intuitive, easier. No weird gestures, no multiple steps, no learning techniques. We will get copy and paste, but most people need data detectors and commands much more.
very inspirational! great blog
You missed one VERY important point in your article. If the iPhone doesn’t implement a system of cut copy paste, then the iPhone can NEVER have true word processing, or even a reliable form of document editing, which will severely cripple the iPhone for the enterprise market (which is what Apple is trying to sell the iPhone as – an enterprise device).
This is exactly what terrifies me most.. People actually get brainwashed by Apple – I suppose keyboard lag, no Netlfix licensing, apps not being allowed through the store is all for our benefit.
You’re an embarrassment.
I bought the ipod touch on Sunday. I returned it on Tuesday. The only reason is that it could not cut and paste. I loved every other feature. My reason: I use the calendar program all day to set and re-set appointments. I live and die by my calendar. And if my 11:00 appointment wants to reschedule for some time next week, I’ll be damned if I am going to re-type the entire entry (name and contact info) instead of just highlighting and pasting into their new time slot. It’s sad that my very old Palm Pilot can do a better job than the ipod touch. I am still very disappointed.
Lepton misses the point and need patronise me by telling to “think about it”. I have an appointment to meet someone that happens Wed one week thurs the next and some Sundays – all without a pattern. Apple thinks it is OK to have to type all these details in every time just because they can’t figure a way to say “Copy appointment” and “Paste appointment”. I have done it for 4 years with Windows Mobile why the big deal for Apple to copy and paste the technique from Windows? A bit precious I suspect.
Well perhaps Apple didn’t agree with what I wrote 18 months ago, since they did indeed put copy and paste into the iPhone back in version 3.0. Still, what they did isn’t enough to “Copy appointment”. You have to copy one field at a time. They _could_ put that command in there, now that the OS has the proper internal support, but didn’t. And as an iPhone developer, I can’t add it either, since I can’t get hold of the Calendar database inside the phone – it’s private.
I am an iphone user and would welcome the COPY/PASTE command for caladers.
Apple maybe digging it’s own grave as new models of smartphones hi tthe market with similar interfaces which and hence remove any edge the iphone currently has.
You make several broad assumptions that don’t hold up well in real world use. I often find text that my iPhone knows (or erroneously) believes is a phone number or a date that which I wish to copy into another application. A typical example of this is my refusal to pay AT&T’s exorbitant text messaging rates.
But since the data detector is apparently more qualified than I am to know what I want to do with the phone number, I have to use my built own copy-paste function: remember the number and re-thumbing it in. A tedious task that computers are supposed to handle for us.