December 11th, 2008
Copy and paste arrives for the iPhone (sort of)
No it’s not from Apple, and yes its legal.
CNet’s Marguerite Reardon notes that this isn’t the first time a third party developer has tried to add copy and paste to the iPhone. OpenClip showed potential but Apple’s iPhone 2.1 software shut down the functionality.
The caveat is that this latest copy and paste scheme works only between Mail and Safari, which let’s face it, are probably the main applications that you want it for anyway. The technique uses a clever combination of javascript bookmarks and Web services and doesn’t require you to install any software, bypassing the App Store altogether.
Pastebud does its magic with two Safari bookmarks: one prepares and loads the page you are viewing, ready to select text at the touch of a finger. From there, you can copy any text you want and create a new mail message with that text in it. In addition you can also copy and paste in the text field of a different Web page.
Jed Schmidt, creator of Pastebud, says that they have been testing it for about a week and are now “putting the finishing touches on the web site before launch.” A video on Gizmodo demonstrates it in action.
While this technique will probably work for a lot of people, I just want real copy and paste from Apple for Christmas. Please?
Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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