It is, but it’s also a _phone_.
Just because it’s a phone doesn’t mean it should be limited - my Nokia 6680 doesn’t do some of the magic the iPhone does, but it does support selected text.
You would have thought that a solution would exist involving multitouch or something.
— David Mitchell 
I cand do cut and paste with my Nokia.
I dont think it will be a problem to implement this if that is what people really want: they already have the concept (I love Gruber’s use of “concept” with respect to “selected text”! and he’s right: “selected text” is a concept) of the magnifying glass: simply use a modifier button (or, toggle behaviour between just “move cursor”, and “move cursor while selecting”, copying to clipboard should in this mode then be automatic — think Unix’ three-button-mice; pasting would work respectively) to have the magnified text selected.
But my guess is that Apple thought it could do without the concept of “selected text” in the iPhone. Maybe that needs a bit of adapting on the user-side. Maybe not, though (ie. maybe it’s just missing functionality).
Another option could be a clever implementation of a context-menu (”‘right-clicking’ the space-bar”, so to speak).
— taktmann
Let’s not forget; copy and paste isn’t a feature. It’s a mechanism by which you accomplish a goal. People don’t buy devices (or software) because it lets them copy and paste; they buy it because it allows them to easily bring relevant text from one document into the one they’re working on, or share a memorable quote or cool website with their friends. These are the goals users want to achieve. Copy and paste is one mechanism of doing that, but it’s also a pretty clumsy one when you’re not using a mouse, keyboard and reasonably sized display. I’ve used copy & paste on other phones and the experience it reminds me of most of all is DOS-era word processing.
I can imagine that simply using two pressure points to mark the start and end of a text field to select would work very well. At each finger you would get the magnifying glass and text in between would be selected. Then you would have copy/cut buttons appearing.
Alternatively this could be easily accomplished with a single button for a “Text selection tool” that replaced the default magnifying behaviour for as long as it was depressed.
That however would pollute the iPhone’s interface metaphor in which the “tool” is a foreign concept replaced with direct interface interaction.
I’ll be interested to see how apple manage to implement this, if they indeed think it’s a good idea.
— Benji XVI
Hey, my W810 does copy+paste. That means it’s better than the iPhone, right?
— iain
The beauty and genius of the iphone’s interface is that if they didn’t get it perfect the first time, they can do a software update to fix “almost” any problem. The only question now is, will they think it is a problem?
Harrumph … how am I gonna convince my the spousal unit to trade-up if this BlackBerry killer can’t selectively cut-n-paste into email only the good first impression stuff?
I think a great way to implement copy and paste would be to do a 2 finger drag. The most efficient I think would be by selecting the beginning and end points, but that is not what consumers are used to (unless the use emacs, and I am pretty sure they are not the major customer base for the iphone).
— addicted
“my W810 does copy+paste. That means it’s better than the iPhone, right?”
Yes.
— Total
“You gotta admit, that’s at least a little bit funny.”
Why should there be anything to “admit” here? If you want an _opinion_, I’d say it would be better if one could do that (although I don’t see it as a serious drawback). One might equally well ask what’s moving behind your choice of language here.
Should _you_ have to “admit” that it’s rather strange that anyone who’s seen the demo videos of the iPhone and is intrigued by it, or who generally likes Apple products and software–and the current crop is really rather good in many ways–should be depicted in the media as someone having an odd and irrational loyalty towards the Apple brand?
What’s behind the currently eagerly-touted notion of an Apple “religion”? I suppose people have an awareness that religion is a _social_ phenomenon, something that was not so obvious to the Enlightenment people but that we’ve since learnt from writers like Durkheim. However, even a certain amount of brand loyalty is not necessarily equivalent to the loyalty and sense of belonging inspired by, for example, sports teams or biker gangs, let alone religions. And what you might read on folklore.org is hardly an equivalent to stories of the gods and demigods told as complex allegories of the human condition. The sense of the sacred and the concept of the numinous are entirely absent. The more one thinks about this notion of “Apple as a religion” the more suspicious one becomes. One has to wonder if the notion has been insinuated into the press as a way of trying to divert attention and undermine the realization that Apple actually has some good, even revolutionary, products that are worth looking at.
In fact, if one were looking for quasi-religious–I shan’t say “religious”–phenomena then I think the open-source movement would be a better hunting ground. It’s possible to discern concepts of cleanliness and pollution (a recurrent theme in human life with, I suggest, deep emotional roots) emerging in software choices. Now, there are practical reasons why one may wish to have source code in at least some situations, but this goes far beyond that. Some open-source advocates speak as if when the source-code is not “revealed” the god is not there and we are in the presence of sin and pollution. By contrast, find even one Apple user puritanical enough not to run an application merely because it uses the “wrong” licence.
My own view is that, for the average user, whether or not open formats are used is a matter of far more importance than whether or not _all_ code is open source. Apple, and the iPhone itself, are quite interesting from this point of view:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q2.07/879DD82D-5595-4746-BFCE-524BBA7C7A85.html
Of course, if you don’t agree with any of this, you’re welcome to make comments at any time in the future about “an anonymous poster” who has the wrong views vis-a-vis Apple. But, actually, you’d have been welcome to have my email address if you’d wanted it. There’s no box for that in your form, and I’m not posting it in the open where it can be spidered by spammers’ bots.
— Nick
Once you’ve invoked the mag glass, holding down the home button acts as a CMD key of sorts allowing you to select an area of text. Two fingers for text selection would be pretty complicated (you still gotta hold onto the thing). Once selected a command bar of sorts opens along the bottom (with standard cut/copy/paste options) and remains there until you’ve found your destination for the select text, whether it be in the same message, another message or search field.
/fantasy interface idea
— Marco
I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out in what way Apple dropped the ball on the copy/paste thing.
1.-Apple decided “it isn’t that important” or “nobody will notice”.
2.-Apple didn’t find a way to implement it, along with text selection.
3.-Apple is trying to get people to work in a different way (which they’ve tried to in the past and succeeded in some things to a certain degree) and failed to provide an obvious alternative.
I do acknowledge doing text selection without a pixel-perfect “pointer” (like a mouse or a stylus) is not easy, especially in a place where your finger is obscuring a lot of what you want to select. I would’ve expected Apple, of all companies, to come up with a viable solution, though.
BTW, I should mention I want an iPhone. I may end up getting a Helios but only because it’s cheaper and may be available in Europe sooner. I still think Apple has cut some corners I’m not sure I’m comfortable with of which Copy/Paste is but one.
— Eduo
I agree with addicted — a two-finger touch/drag would work very well. I imagine something like this:
1. Two-finger touch the beginning of the text you want to select
2. Two-finger drag to, or two-finger touch, the end of the text you want to select
3. When you lift your fingers (detouch?) you can:
a. Begin typing to replace the selected text, or
b. One-finger touch outside the selection to cancel the selection (and move the insertion point), or
c. One-finger touch the selection to bring up a popup with icons for delete, cut, copy, and cancel selection
4. If you cut or copy, a pasteboard icon will appear in a corner somewhere; touching the icon will insert the pasteboard at the current insertion point or replace the selection
— GruffPelt
Funny! I happen to be reading this while wearing my ‘98 WWDC t-shirt. Too bad I went cold turkey with Apple during the whole Copeland fiasco: I promised myself never to buy any more Apple stuff but that just keeps getting harder.
— Harold
Anyone who looks at the iPhone can see that this is clearly a very subtle, deeply thought-out, and carefully studied interface design. There are TONS of subtle bits of UI/usability tweaking — elements no new user would notice if omitted. Look at the custom keyboards, the adaptive landing zones on the keypad. Just look at the detailing on the case.
And yes, clearly, someone intentionally decided that copy/paste was a bad idea and should be avoided.
Now, it’s possible that’s the wrong call, but when people ridicule it from afar — when people just assume that “a two-finger touch/drag would work very well” without either experience or testing — it’s just silly. And it makes everyone in the field look silly, too: if you can have UI opinions without actually doing or knowing anything, why the hell should we pay interface designers any attention, or money?
More interestng than the absence of copy/paste is that there’s no QUIT.
Gotta love the Apple FanBoys defending every little criticism of anything Apple puts out. Hey maybe if you admitted the faults, Apple might be more inclined to fix them. If all Apple sees is people praising everything they put out, why should they even bother to examine possible faults?
— Fatal Claws
Hey, Fatal Claws, if you want to be taken seriously use a real name and stop with the “FanBoy” crap already. Do you think you’re being clever? I have no problem with intelligent criticism of Apple, but I hate being called a “fanboy” of anything. And Mark, why does an otherwise intelligent, thoughtful person use the term? What exactly do you mean when you use it?
— Tim Swan
You know, I don’t consider Apple infallible, but if there’s one word to describe their product design, it’s “deliberate.” Considering that everyone and their dog is suggesting a two-fingered drag-select, we have plenty of evidence that this a dead obvious idea. So why do people keep suggesting it? Who here thinks that it never occured to the Apple engineers? That they did not consciously reject it?
I like the idea of two-fingered drag-select, but my dog rails against anything that requires opposable digits.
— David Ramos
Funny how everyone (and their dog too) considers the iPhone as a fully final frozen product…
This is (officially at least) version 1.0.
Though it was “rushed” to market (still, it doesn’t feel rough) and even though it has been developped, in appearances, very fast, it feels worked out and polished.
Maybe (as is the -new- Apple way) they did try and get the basis right, almost in a perfectionist way, and then, they will attack the more subtle more complex aspects later? (look at the iterative evolutions of the iPods)
To get such a product (don’t deny it, reviewers and buyers alike are almost ecstatic, this product is something quite out of the ordinary), you gotta have some fairly clever engineers. And some clever managers too, who know when to say no.
The end result should give you a hint about the process. This wasn’t designed by dumb stupid people.
And, do not despair… We have the iTunes update mechanism. This is one of the few phones that can get a seamless firmware update… Think about it. And Apple DID state they will improve it over time.
So, let’s be optimistic.
— Gzavier
Gzavier: Apple’s update mechanism isn’t seamless. The one on the Nokia 6300 I’m typing this message from (that has a working clipboard, which I used when I started typing in the wrong form field) has. It’s a menu entry on the phone, and I can update with a single click, without needing software on a computer, in fact without needing a computer at all. And the phone boots in a second instead of 20.
— Arve
This post is so relevant that even Aristotle manifest himself on Earth in order to help Apple address this issue. :)
— Baco