Found Footage: copy and paste on the iPhone mockup

Since several people have come up with their own ideas for iPhone copy and paste, I thought I'd throw mine in.


The challenge is to come up with something both intuitive and quick. The best solution I've come up with so far is simple. It is basically the caret positioning method, but expanded slightly. To position a caret, one simply presses and holds where they want to position the caret, and after a little magnifying glass (meant to aid them) comes up, "corrects" by moving around their finger.
My text selection idea is nearly identical. One selects a starting position like normal, and then does the same thing for the ending position, but instead of simply pressing down and holding, he or she double-taps and then does not release. This would tell the iPhone not to erase the previous point, but use it as a starting selection point.
To copy or cut, simply tap the selection itself (much like one taps a link), and a command window (including cut, copy, paste, share) should pop up.
Simple, easy, quick.

Pasting shouldn't be too hard either. Perhaps simply position the cursor, and then tap, and an "insert" window could pop up. This window would include paste, insert picture, etc.

"Thanks for watching... I love you."

Modes are generally to be avoided in UI design. You don't want a tech support call of someone stuck in selection mode and not sure what happened. I thought of something like this a couple weeks ago and sent it as a suggestion to Apple. You all should do the same.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

I initially proposed one finger to get magnifying glass, position where you want, then drop second finger and drag to select. When you release, a Cut/Copy/Cancel menu comes up. To Paste, hold a position magnifying glass, then tap with second finger to get the Paste/Cancel menu. Pretty easy.

Yay Vimeo! I'm psyched to see our player on a website I read obsessively. This video is also on the front page of Digg! Awesome nerd moment for me.

That is the Funniest ever LOL! Great Video.

I love you too, man.

As a recovering Newton -> Palm -> WinCE -> PocketPC -> WM5 user, I *still* expect holding my finger (poor man's stylus) down will begin a selection.

(Even though most post-Newton stylus interfaces have used the "sweep" method to select.)

Even after a month, I'm still a bit surprised when the magnifying glass with character insertion point appears instead.

Awesome idea. At first I was going to say lame if I can only keep one copy in my clip board, but having multiple clips in the clip board makes the system work.

Apple, get on it! I want a copy function. call it iCopy

Tick tock. This would be ideal. When is the new update coming adding this and other new features to the phone? Tick Tock.

Great video.. lol.

I would add though, there no need for that mode most of the time.. just bring up the loupe, then put a 2nd finger on the loupe and drag over text to make a selection.