How Apple Could Handle Copy and Paste in the iPhone

Why would the iPhone rely on 10+ year old technology like the Newton? It has one massive advantage over the Newton: multitouch. Why not allow a user to tap-and-hold in one location of text and tap-and-hold in another location. After a second, the system would highlight the text between the taps and voila, selected text to drag around. Or maybe tapping inside the selected area copies, double-tapping cuts, etc. Why rely on what was essentially a kludge (those oddball gestures) on the Newton for the iPhone?

Why would the iPhone rely on 10+ year old technology like the Newton? It has one massive advantage over the Newton: multitouch. Why not allow a user to tap-and-hold in one location of text and tap-and-hold in another location. After a second, the system would highlight the text between the taps and voila, selected text to drag around. Or maybe tapping inside the selected area copies, double-tapping cuts, etc. Why rely on what was essentially a kludge (those oddball gestures) on the Newton for the iPhone?

I like that idea of using the multitouch. Ive played around with that on the iphone and its really fun, would love to be able to place one finger at the beginning of text and another finger at the end of the text to highlight it all. Brilliant, and probably the most logical way to do it.

I would think with multitouch technology, gestures could be used for commands such as copy and paste.

I would think with multitouch technology, gestures could be used for commands such as copy and paste.

Exactly =] Apple will do it...i hope...

I think the beauty of the implementation is making the clipboard a special location on the screen (the edge) - and more natural than a gesture (what would that be?). You can select the text how you want (multitouch), but you have to shrink it down into a smaller representation otherwise it will get "in the way" of your application you are trying to use.

With the multitouch, what if the text is larger than the viewable screen?

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Why would the iPhone rely on 10+ year old technology like the Newton? It has one massive advantage over the Newton: multitouch. Why not allow a user to tap-and-hold in one location of text and tap-and-hold in another location. After a second, the system would highlight the text between the taps and voila, selected text to drag around. Or maybe tapping inside the selected area copies, double-tapping cuts, etc. Why rely on what was essentially a kludge (those oddball gestures) on the Newton for the iPhone?

I don't think it is about ten year old technology but an interesting design concept that is somewhat timeless in appeal.

Some form of a clipboard would be amazing. Going back 'old skewl' would be pretty great as well.

There is already a good thread here at Macrumors about copy/paste that has what I think would be a much better solution. It's not my idea but it involves a simple gesture and a UI element that remains onscreen. I believe the author was calling them "golden hoops," but the name isn't important. Once these elements were present, the user would be able to grab and slide them anywhere in a body of text. At that point, the gesture is repeated and a dialog appears asking for cut/copy. There is a more complete and detailed explanation in the original thead (including a very nicely
made graphic).

This is going to be difficult to do well.

1. Tap, hold and drag would work to select text, but this gesture is already used to finely position the cursor within editable text fields. Maybe a double tap, hold and drag would work for selecting text, but its scope of action would have to be expanded to let it function on non-editable text, as on a Web page.

Alternatively, if you could limit selections to editable text (i.e,. where the keyboard is displayed), you could add a key that would make the single tap, hold and drag select text rather than move the cursor.

2. The next step is to indicate whether you want to cut or copy the highlighted text. A simple pop-up menu could work here. Tap and hold in the selection to display a menu with three options, cut, copy, and cancel (to deselect).

3. The next step, indicating where to paste, is relatively easy, since it's no different than editing existing text now.

4. The last step, pasting the text, is probably the most challenging. It's easy to position the insertion point using the magnifying glass, but then you'd need another gesture to actually initiate the paste operation.

For this, it might be best to add a "paste" key to the keyboard. It would be highlighted when there was text on the clipboard and dimmed otherwise.

you know what else they could add? a caps lock, so i dont have to hit shift for every letter, even just let me hold shift and type would be fine