[Wharamurrrrrr......] The flux capacitor hisses, the time disk whirrs and I’m standing in the auditorium at the Moscone Centre on January 5th 2009. Now THAT’s fortuitous. Ooh, Steve Jobs is on stage. Let’s listen in.

Peering into MacWorld 2009

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Right from the very start (July 2007), the voices clamouring for Copy and Paste functionality on the Apple iPhone have been growing stronger and stronger. Is this really big deal? Why have Apple not already implemented this in the operating system? How could they include it without complicating the UI too much? What other implications might this have? And is it likely to happen? What about workarounds in the meantime?

Yes, Copy and Paste IS a big deal. Ask anyone who’s tried doing actual work on an iPhone and they’ll tell you. Better still, try it yourself. Admittedly, the lack of a basic Office suite restricts the scope of Copy and Paste slightly, but the flexibility of being able to selectively lift bits out of an email or text for inclusion in another communication is significant. And I’m one of several million iPhone users who are rather keen to see it in place.

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You, me and next door’s cat know that a lot of the hardware and software designs coming from world phone manufacturers and mobile developers have been directly inspired by the Apple iPhone. All of a sudden full-screen interfaces are back in fashion, with even Windows Mobile getting finger-friendly additions bolted on wherever possible. From HTC’s TouchFLO to  third party utilities, the finger-lovin’ starts off as reasonably impressive and then disappoints fairly soon afterwards. And there are a whole crop of proprietary OS devices with iPhone pretensions, such as the LG Viewty, about as close to the iPhone as you can get while still being able to say ‘hey, don’t send the lawyers round here, guv, this is totally different’. Read the full story