Here at Last: Copy-and-Paste Capabilities for the iPhone
Want copy-and-paste features for your iPhone? Well, Apple still says it isn’t a priority, but luckily for you some developers have taken matters into their own hands and created a new framework that allows apps to pass data between themselves.
The main downside is that the new tools don’t work with Apple’s built-in apps. But until Apple admits copy-and-paste functionality is needed, at least you have a partial solution.
The key is a new open source iPhone app framework named OpenClip.
The problem with making copy and paste work on the iPhone is ensuring that your app doesn’t run afoul of the iPhone SDK agreement, which forbids background processes. Apple also forbids plugins, which makes it difficult for apps to communicate with each other.
Developer Zac White, who started the OpenClip foundation, figured out how to make an end run around the SDK limitations by using a shared space on the iPhone. Any application that includes the OpenClip framework can then access the shared space and write data to it, thus enabling copy and paste between apps.
In other words, rather than trying to work with Apple’s limitations, White created a framework that other developers can include in their apps. Think of it as an opt-in clipboard.
So far Twittelator, WordPress and UItralinga have announced forthcoming apps with OpenClip, and MagicPad, Dial Zero, and Cocktails have expressed interest in supporting the project as well.
If you’d like to check out the features in action, Cali Lewis of GeekBrief.tv got to play with some prototype apps:
Cut and Paste for iPhone from Cali Lewis on Vimeo.
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