Copy/paste is something that was overhyped by the iPhone detractors. Just like MMS has been. So apple are really just using the hype these people created to their advantage. How many new features do RIM roll out in their OS to existing customers for free? Its putting a new breath of life into my iPhone (1,1 so no 3G for me) and whenever I end up having the justifiable funds to get a new Phone (probably 12 - 14 months from now) it would be an iPhone because of how I know the platform seems to have longevity.
However, since getting 3.0, I am really impressed by how it works, but the feature which brings me closer to my Apple pc experience has to be Spotlight. My MacBook is really minimalistic, I only have 4 Apps in the dock, nothing on the desktop and my default way of launching apps and finding things is Spotlight.
I feel like this was Apple's way of showing the competition how things should be done in the future, I also feel like the doubts I had about upgrading to an iPhone 3G or the next generation have been dispelled by how they have addressed these overhyped issues. Even though I don't use MMS (my older phones supported it but never ever seemed to work properly) and I only felt that I missed copy/paste about 5 times since getting my iPhone last year, the features in devices like the Palm Pre, and especially the Open Source philosophy in the Android platform were making me seriously consider making my next phone one of those two. Since the announcement and using it a little, I feel like I will stay loyal.
That's where copy/paste is succeeding. Its making some Blackberry users think 'wait a minute, Apple seem to be listening to their users', its helping Apple keep their existing userbase and its only going to help attract people who are used to Nokias/Sony Ericssons/Samsungs because of the mix of rich functionality with a real ease of use, and also the fact that with a firmware update, you basically get a phone upgrade. So yeah, of course its overhyped, but every iPhone hater's first argument is 'no copy and paste, the iPhone is nothing compared to my BlackBerry blah blah blah..'