Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review
Manage your iPhone's clipboard with Snippets
The cut, copy, and paste features (finally) included in version 3.0 of the iPhone OS greatly improve the productivity of the iDevices. However, there is room for improvement. Enter Erich Bratton with his clipboard manager app, Snippets, available now in the iTunes App Store [iTunes link]. Snippets offers a way to organize bits of text that can be accessed quickly to paste into emails, text messages, notes, and other places. The clips can be categorized into a number of pre-determined or user-created folders as well. To help get new users comfortable, the app comes with a variety of canned responses and other text pieces, some of which are hysterical.
The real power of Snippets lies in the ability to paste or create text in the app for later use. Think of it as boilerplates for your iPhone. If you find yourself writing similar things over and over, simply create an entry in Snippets. When you need to write that same text next time, visit the Snippets app first, view the desired text block (which automatically copies it to the clipboard), and then paste it into whatever app you'd like. It really couldn't be much simpler.
The canned responses included with Snippets are worth its price of $.99 alone, in this blogger's opinion. But even if you are wittier than I and appreciate original pieces of text, Snippets is a great app with a very easy-to-use interface that I plan to use again and again. In fact, I might just start using it to write some generic paragraphs that I can use in every review. What a time-saver!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
LD said 3:01PM on 7-06-2009
Any reason this couldn't be done via a webapp with HTML5 and local storage? It would work offline as well.
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Jeffrey said 3:19PM on 7-06-2009
Yeah, it can be done in web app. See Glyphboard http://mrgan.com/gb/
note: open it on your iPhone
JPhone said 3:48PM on 7-06-2009
This is really stupid cause it has about the same functionality as notes.
The excuses are funny but can't really be used in the real world.
http://www.macrumors.com/link/http://interactiveiphone.com
swampgas said 3:08PM on 7-06-2009
How about comparing it to all the other clipboard apps like Clipboard Manager, Clipboard Load&Save, iDoClipboard, and ClipShare?
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mcdj said 3:20PM on 7-06-2009
add photos and I'm a buyer. also, other apps are allowing transfers to a desktop and back. integrate all of that and you have a winner.
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robert said 3:32PM on 7-06-2009
Nice! Thanks for letting me know this was out there.
I can't live without my TextExpander and Jumpcut on my Mac and now I have something similar on my iPhone! Wahoo.
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John Federico said 5:10PM on 7-06-2009
Granted, it's only .99 cents, but it's superfluous.
I have this functionality right now. It's called "Notes.app". You can also use Evernote or any other app that can save text.
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SCOTT said 5:13PM on 7-06-2009
ok...well I am confused about this article/app...
does it automatically save clips like desktop apps can...even tho I can't see it being able to because that would need to be a background app...
I use Stuf on all of my macs...and I can't live without it ...it is amazing and a great network clipboard manager too...with great people behind it
theescapers.com is where you find it
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Kevin Harter said 12:24AM on 7-07-2009
The magic occurs when you open the app and view a snippet. The text you see in the white box is copied to the iPhone's clipboard automatically so that you can close Snippets, open another app, and then paste it (via normal procedures).
Also, I agree that a cloud-based syncing feature would be a great addition. Another would be the ability to open some common apps like Mail, Notes, and Messages, directly from within Snippets.
Nicholas Howard said 7:07PM on 7-06-2009
Nice recommendation!
I like this app a ton because you just have to "look at" the item in you want to copy within Snippets and it automatically adds it to the clipboard, which saves a step.
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Jono said 5:46AM on 7-07-2009
Like people are saying .99c is nothing but it's easy enough to do this with the Notes app. I guess those that want syncing back to the desktop and being able to copy images could use Evernote.
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geoff Mitchell said 12:37PM on 7-07-2009
Save you pennies, folks. Gooseapps has authored and submitted a clipboard manager for the iPhone that's in the approval process and once it's available, it's seemless integration and usage will blow you away.
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Erich said 9:03PM on 7-09-2009
Some people have asked why you would want to use Snippets instead of just the built-in iPhone Notes app... Well, Snippets has categories, comes with a slew of pre-made snippets to use for inspiration, and it's fast because you just have to look at a snippet and it's automatically copied to the clipboard, instead of doing a double-tap, select button, drag and drag the sliders and then the copy button. With Snippets it's 2 taps and you've got a snippet copied to the clipboard! Not counting launching the app :-)
http://snippets.weebly.com/
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