The Shimmering Mirage of iPhone Copy/Paste

Through a combination of Web services and Javascript bookmarklets, Pastebud lets users copy and paste text between the iPhone's mail application and the Safari Web browser, an important capability that's lacking in previous iPhone copy/paste apps such as Proximi's MagicPad.

Pastebud is free, but adds footer text to each paste instance, which can be made to disappear for a $5 fee.

Shane Spiess, president of Portland, Ore.-based Apple reseller MacForce, who has a staff of 20 iPhone users who offer continual feedback on all aspects of the device, said third-party efforts to bridge the copy/paste gap have fallen short of the mark.

"Third-party attempts to bring copy/paste to the iPhone have been rather kludgy, and they usually require four or five steps to do what they're supposed to do," said Spiess.

However, Spiess doesn't think the lack of native copy/paste is a major issue for iPhone users, simply because of the device's many other useful features.

"It seems to me that developers should be working on finding a way to do copy/paste that works universally no matter what application you're using," Spiess said.

iPhone critics have often pointed out that BlackBerry OS has had native copy/paste for years, but it's a somewhat convoluted, menu-intensive process. Michael Oh, president of Boston-based Apple reseller Tech Superpowers, said Apple's commitment to keeping the iPhone user experience as simple as possible is one reason why it doesn't consider the addition of copy/paste support to be a urgent priority.

Spiess agrees, and cites this as the reason why Apple has yet to develop copy/paste on its own -- or throw its support behind one of the third-party copy/paste application developers.

"With Apple, the UI is so critical to every product, so it seems like Apple may be waiting to find the right way to do copy/paste rather than come out with an interim solution that people would probably be frustrated with," Spiess said.