One problem with cut, copy, and paste on the iPhone
Posted on June 23rd, 2009 by Brad
So Apple granted the wishes of many by adding the magical cut copy and paste functionality in OS 3.0. To be honest, I didn’t think I’d care either way but it turns out I do actually use it quite a bit. Another wish Apple granted was adding MMS. Of course, AT&T hasn’t flipped the switch to actually allow it’s users to use MMS. So the wife, forgetting that I can’t yet use MMS, sends me a picture. So I get the normal text message from AT&T with a link to a website to retrieve the picture. But wait, I notice that in the text message they also provide a login ID and password to access the site. These two are completely random and impossible to remember BUT I now have copy and paste at my disposal to help me more easily get around my short term forgetfulness. Right? So I hold my finger down on the text message to copy the login id and I get this bullshit:
That, my friends, is frustrating. I cannot copy the text of the actual text message, only the whole text message itself.
What.
The.
Fuck.
Apple, seriously! You can copy the text in every other application, but not in a text message? This is ridiculous. This silly text message we get from AT&T is the only way to get an MMS, which is not Apple’s fault, but at least I thought I’d be able to copy and paste the username and password to actually retrieve the picture of my 2 year old in his sunglasses. But no.
I love my Apple products and after a year I still can’t put my iPhone down but Jesus H. Christ this is more frustrating than not being able to copy and paste at all!
~Brad
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2 Responses to “One problem with cut, copy, and paste on the iPhone”
1CJ
July 29th, 2009 @ 11:47 pm
Hey Brad, followed you over from Cooper Journal.
I agree, Copy is great overall, but there are still some rough edges to it. For this particular issue, the best workaround I’ve found is that if you begin to fwd the message you’ll get a editable field where you can copy individual elements of the particular message.
In case that’s not clear: “Edit” > select the message > “Forward” > copy what you want > “Cancel” the fwd process.
Hope that helps.
2Brad
July 30th, 2009 @ 6:47 am
Thanks for the comment CJ! You’re correct, there is a workaround, and I probably should have mentioned it in the post, however it is still only a workaround and not a solution. The problem is that Copy doesn’t work the same as it does in other areas of the OS. It’s an inconsitency. It’s something that you expect to be there but isn’t. There are other areas of the phone where this is a problem too. Open the phone app and go to the keypad and type in a phone number then try to copy it… I specifically wrote about SMS messages because of the combination limited Copy functionality and the need to copy specific information in order to retrieve your media from the jacked up AT&T MMS solution of putting your MMS messages on a website.
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