[doglesby]

eteen said:

Copy and paste....hmmm...
I do not understand why it seems so hard to implement.

If some text is hi-lighted, a button appears on the left corner with copy on it. Just press it.

Oops, skipped right over the hard part. You can't select text on the iPhone (yet). Reviews indicate (I've never eve seen one in the wild) that the Storm's text selection is infuriating.

Hell, text selection alone would be a huge boon, my bookmarklets would be so handy if I could select text in a web page.

[shavingcream]

How about multimedia SMS??? Cut and paste is such an old cry from the iPhone community, it would be a shame if Apple doesn't give it to us. Of course, it would not be such a big downer.

[dicklacara]

The item of most interest to me is the "3G always connected" capability the author mentions.

The success of the iPhone as a mobile Internet device gives Apple a lot of leverage with the 3G carriers in negotiating: who will provide the 3G service for this new device, and at what levels/costs.

I would not be surprised if Apple were able to offer this new device with 3G service provided by any one of multiple carriers... so you could sign up with the carrier you choose!

Or, an even more interesting possibility, the device would use all 3G carriers.

By this I mean the device would work on any carrier's network without contract, changing SIM cards, etc.

I can see several creative (and reasonable cost) ways that carrier service charges could be handled through the iTunes store.

So, with this new Apple device, you could access the Internet, anytime, anywhere and by any means (Cable/DSL, WiFi, 3G, etc.).

A true "take it with you everywhere" global game changer!

Dick

[itsjustme]

Just a quick triple tap to bring up clipboard and enable drag to copy or just a paste button...I really need to be able to highlite a big portion of text in an email and delete before forwarding.....

[TheBum]

itsjustme said:

Just a quick triple tap to bring up clipboard and enable drag to copy or just a paste button...I really need to be able to highlite a big portion of text in an email and delete before forwarding.....

I've been thinking of ways Apple could implement the cut/copy portion of the operation. You could position the cursor as is done now to mark the beginning of the text, double-tap and hold on the second tap to get another cursor, drag the second cursor to the end of the selection, and release. A menu could pop up at that point asking whether you want to cut, copy, or abort. Heck, there could be a paste option in the menu too, which would replace the entire selection with whatever was in the clipboard.

[halmbrown]

Okay, copy and paste would be nice, but how about it you want to copy and paste a blog entry into an email, and that entry is waaaay down near the bottom of the page which has 200 posts on it.

Currently (unless I'm missing the equivalent of being able to use Apple/command and the down down arrow - or up arrow for that atter ) you have to use your fingers to scroll down, and down, and down, and down, and down, and down the page, waiting a few seconds for each screen to load.

I'd like to see a way to scroll quickly to the bottom of a web page.

Anybody else agree?

[dicklacara]

@halmbrown

Scroll to top and scroll to bottom should not be too difficult to implement.

Just curious: how do you know the entry you want is the one at the bottom (or near to the bottom), with out first scrolling through others to see which one you want?

[robogobo]

-Copy/Paste, not so hard. Clippy is doing very well on jailbroken iPhones.

-remember, iPhone OS = OS X

[dudemac]

I am always amazed when I grab my decade old palm pilot and can cut/copy/paste not only in an app but also between them. Not only that but I can beam notes, either idividual or category. Memo has categories. Memo's can be attached directly to calendar events..... and list goes on and on.
As much as I love the iphone interface and over the air syncing. I really don't understand the lack of basic functionality. And for someone who used the palm on a daily basis to keep things organized I just haven't been able to totally adapt to the new device. Right now I am torn between using the built in apps and third party attempts to fill the gaps, but are not still not well integrated on the desktop side.
I hope the PRE has been a wake up to Apple. Interface is great but overall functionality is really important too. And yeah at this point in our technology I expect no less than both.
thedude

[fletc3her]

Exactly. The gesture of putting your finger on the screen and moving it is already mapped to moving the entire screen. Holding your finger on the screen in a text area will bring up the magnifying glass so you can move the text input location. What additional gesture should be used for text selection? How should drag and drop be distinguished from scrolling?

With a mouse there are a lot more options because we have so many buttons. There is one mouse button plus chords involving shift, ctrl, command, option, or combinations of these. There are also different behaviors depending on if you drag immediately or pause before dragging. Some mice have a second button and a scroll wheel or scroll ball.

I think they'll have to go with some kind of modal functionality. Either a gesture like double tap or an onscreen button would enter selection mode. Now you could drag your finger over something to select it. A selected object could then be dragged. While dragging there would need to be targets for cut/copy/delete. It might also make sense to have other action targets like telephone or email. Another double tap and you're back in normal mode again.

Another possibility would be to use two fingers for selection while one finger still moves the screen. If it was possible to add a "shift" button that would be another way of distinguishing normal scrolling from selection and dragging. Even with a system like this though we'll never have the wealth of actions which a mouse and keyboard allow us.

[LowededWookie]

I don't necessarily agree with that.

There are many databases in use by the iPhone that can be used by other apps.

AddressBook is one of them.

There would be no valid reason why a copy and paste database cannot be utilised at all.

[dicklacara]

@LowededWookie

You can access the Address Book because Apple provides a documented (supported) API.

If/when Apple supplies a copy/paste API you will be able to use that to accomplish what you want.

However, I doubt that they will use SQLite to implement the system-wide clipboard-- overkill IMO.

There are lots of other, cleaner ways to implement the clipboard.

Don't get me wrong, I like SQLite! But why make every app use it just to access a clipboard?

[Coulterboyz]

Well most believe that because it seems likely Apple will allow users to have multiple applications running at once that Apple will up the ante on the specs inside the iPhone. Right now the phone could only run a couple apps at once, even if it could run more than one. So expect the next gen iPhone to be able to run about 6-8 apps.

Do NOT expect the thing to have 4G. It doesn't exist yet. As far as I know, AT&T isn't even planning on rolling 4G out yet. Verison is planning on rolling it out in 2010 and having it in all major cities by 2011, but that's it so far.

On the software side of things, I'm most looking forward to MMS and multiple apps, though I think Apple should get copy/paste, if only to shut people up. Then my next biggest thing is video. The current iPhone can be jailbroken to give video, so this should be done. Also a better camera WITH PINCH TO ZOOM functionality should be done. It just makes sense for the way the iPhone works.

[robogobo]

Clippy (via Cydia) activates a text selection if you tap and hold for a few seconds. First the magnifying glass shows up, and then if you keep holding, you can drag and select text. After you release, a dialog pops up asking if you want to copy, cut, paste, or view the clipboard stack (very nice), or close. It works really well, but only in text fields. So you can't select text from a website or incoming email (unless you hit reply/forward which makes it a text field).

So don't tell me it can't be done. It's been done.