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Remind me again? Why no copy/paste?

marketing

It could just for marketing reasons. The swooshing of Coverflow images and Safari pages looks so much cooler and hip in ads and in the store than merely useful feature such as text selection and the clutter of tiny menus. Cool outsells useful in the cell phone market.
 
Maybe Steve Jobs thinks all iPhone users are so smart that we can just memorize what we see and type it anywhere. You know like someone sending you 5 or so UPS tracking numbers so you can track it in Safari. Yeah no problem memorizing all that and typing it up in Safari. :p
 
gcmexico said:
*
I don't want to or need to do hard core editing on my iphone...someone anyone give me 10 solid good reasons for copy and paste..if we can't come up with 10..why should this issue even be addressed?:cool:
Click to expand...
Umm, that doesn't make any sense at all. By your reasoning, features like Coverflow should be dumped (I can't think of '10 solid good reasons' to use Coverflow) as well as the Weather app, pinch-zoom in Photos.app, etc ...

As for copy/paste, I actually don't use it that much on my current phone. But when I need it, I'm glad it's there. ;)
 
How about this method gesture?

1. Drag the cursor/selection at the start of the text

2. Hold until it magnify bubble appears

3. Tap the screen with another finger once while holding the finger with the magnify bubble. An icon appears at the top (where the cellular bars, battery meter, time, etc. show)

4. Drag the magnified bubble to highlight the desired text

5. Release the bubble. 3-4 option appears - Copy, Cut, Paste, or Cancel

6. Repeat 1-5 (minus the highlight part if pasting)

Haven't figured out the safari problem though

My opinion on C/P for the iPhone, a feature that would be convenient, but something I can live without for a phone though. There were times I wished it had it, but I somehow got over that and got used to the fact there is no C/P and find ways around that.
 
Honestly this is one of the only things I really REALLY miss on the phone. It's the only negative I ever address when speaking about it. I love the iPhone. I waited in line on Day 1 for 7 1/2 hours. I still LOVE it. But to not have this feature boggles my mind. I am hoping, really hoping, that it is added in 2.0 or the 3G version and they just didn't mention it because it would seem like, 'Hey we added copy/paste! You know, the feature all other smart phones have always had!' and maybe they didn't want to advertise that it was missing this. I mean, a scientific calculator?! Really?! As I said, hoping it's there...we'll see very shortly I guess. When different software versions came out, they didn't even say they added the ability to BCC yourself...so maybe this will be something that is just now there.
Fingers crossed.
 
All you need is a special gesture to put the screen into "select mode".

So for example you do a two-finger-double-tap, the screen dims and now dragging along the text will select it. When you're finished, double-tap the screen and a pop-up asks if you want to cut/copy.

There are so many simple ways of doing this, and if I can think of a way that's pretty easy, I'm sure Apple can come up with one that's very easy!

I very much doubt it's been left out because it's 'too hard'.
 
Project said:
Yes, because the ability to copy/paste is very high on the list of criteria when enterprises are deciding on what phones to support or deploy.


/sigh
Click to expand...

Um yes it is. The whole purpose companies use phones like BB and Treos are for email and getting documents on the go.

If you cant cut/copy and paste or edit documents or emails on the go then the phone is of no use to a business person.

I work for the 3rd largest financial firm in the world and we use Blackberrys exlusively because our managers are able to edit emails and documents on the go.

Other than the whole corporate email thing, editing documents and emails on the go is the next most important thing to corporate enterprise users.

K.Thanks.Bye.
 
Mr Skills said:
All you need is a special gesture to put the screen into "select mode".

So for example you do a two-finger-double-tap, the screen dims and now dragging along the text will select it. When you're finished, double-tap the screen and a pop-up asks if you want to cut/copy.
Click to expand...

I had an idea back when the phone first came out. Hold your left thumb (or any finger because of the way you hold the phone) on the bottom of the screen, then use your index finger to touch and drag to select the text. When it sees another finger on the bottom of the screen it will trigger it. Kind of like the two finger right click or two finger drag on the mac touchpad.
 
why do we need copy/paste and/or mms again?

I understand that such technology is basic on standard phones. Heck, even my ex-el-cheapo moto had those features. I have been giving it some thought not to the reasons of why we need these things, but more on the why such features are not necessary.

Why Copy/Paste is not necessary:
1. Certain info is autofilled and therefore not necessary to copy/paste on certain apps such as safari, contacts, google maps, mail, sms, and calendar.
2. If you need to copy/paste an email, can't you just forward it?
3. If there is a website or a phone number listed on mail, then you could just click on it to call, make new contact, or view the site on safari.
4. 1 through 3 show that there is an invisible and different way that copy/paste is already implemented without it saying copy/paste.

Why MMS is not necessary:
1. Video and Audio attachments can't happen because there is no Video and Audio to attach on the iPhone. (btw, music, videos, tv shows don't count)
2. Images could already be shared via something better than mms- Mail.
3. If you want to share youtube videos, just post a link on Mail.

Please, someone feel free to post on why Copy/Paste is that necessary because, so far, I'm not convinced that we need it. Also, I posted on MMS to kill two birds with one stones since both are usually together on the "Why I wont buy an iPhone until it has these (unecessary) features." :p
 
Project said:
You already failed at this point because dragging while in magnifying mode simply moves the magnifying glass and the cursor. You can't do both at the same time.
Click to expand...

I'm sure you could add a click, the drag. I guess my point was, it's definitely doable.
 
pomus said:
Please, someone feel free to post on why Copy/Paste is that necessary ... (snip)
Click to expand...

Fortunately, it's not a requirement that YOU or anyone else here understands ... only that Apple understands :)

Nevertheless, I for one often include web links in my posts. Some are quite long. I can only do that easily from a device with copy / paste, unless I feel like dropping back to the 18th century and using paper and pen.
 
pomus said:
I understand that such technology is basic on standard phones. Heck, even my ex-el-cheapo moto had those features. I have been giving it some thought not to the reasons of why we need these things, but more on the why such features are not necessary.

Why Copy/Paste is not necessary:
1. Certain info is autofilled and therefore not necessary to copy/paste on certain apps such as safari, contacts, google maps, mail, sms, and calendar.
2. If you need to copy/paste an email, can't you just forward it?
3. If there is a website or a phone number listed on mail, then you could just click on it to call, make new contact, or view the site on safari.
4. 1 through 3 show that there is an invisible and different way that copy/paste is already implemented without it saying copy/paste.

Why MMS is not necessary:
1. Video and Audio attachments can't happen because there is no Video and Audio to attach on the iPhone. (btw, music, videos, tv shows don't count)
2. Images could already be shared via something better than mms- Mail.
3. If you want to share youtube videos, just post a link on Mail.

Please, someone feel free to post on why Copy/Paste is that necessary because, so far, I'm not convinced that we need it. Also, I posted on MMS to kill two birds with one stones since both are usually together on the "Why I wont buy an iPhone until it has these (unecessary) features." :p
Click to expand...

OK, here are a couple:

1. Every day, I get emails that include many lines of quoted text, wordy signatures, and privacy disclaimers that are often much longer than the brief message that I'm actually responding to. When I reply, I usually try to delete this extraneous stuff so as not to add to the problem. Backspacing to delete text takes a long time. Select and cut would solve this.

2. I often need to include text from some other place (Web pages, notes, or emails) in new emails and notes.
 
1) I order stuff online alot and when I get shipping numbers I would like to copy and paste them from the email to the website because sometimes the link in the email doesn't work.

2) Since we can't forward texts it would be nice to copy/paste to people.

And there are other reasons...we just need copy/paste
 
gcmexico said:
*
I don't want to or need to do hard core editing on my iphone...someone anyone give me 10 solid good reasons for copy and paste..if we can't come up with 10..why should this issue even be addressed?:cool:
Click to expand...

Ha ha! Why ten?

Come up with ten reasons for each of these, otherwise they're useless, according to that logic:

Tethering?

Bluetooth?

WiFi?

GSM?

3G?

Keyboard?

SIM card (yes, you read right)?

battery (again, yes, you read right)?

and on and on.

I guess, that if you cannot come up with ten reasons for each, the "feature" must be obsolete …


Edit:
I don't get why people say that clicking three times are "unelegant" when selecting text. On my MBP I click two times to select a word, three times to select a paragraph. It's much better and quicker than using a mouse and drag across the text. It's quite "elegant" if you ask me.
 
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