OpenClip.org: Bringing System-Wide Copy & Paste to iPhone (Video)
August 20, 2008
You may remember Proximi and their MagicPad app we reviewed last month. You might have even seen their user-interface video for system-wide copy & paste. And while all of that was cool and just dandy, the fact remained that copy & paste only remained inside MagicPad itself. But at iPhoneDevCamp2 just a couple weeks ago, the Proximi team met Zac White, a student at the University of Oklahoma, and all of that changed. Using Zac's "100% SDK kosher" technique that allows app-to-app copy & paste and Proximi's user-interface guidelines, OpenClip was born, bringing serious usability to the long-awaited feature-set. But OpenClip, an open-source, non-profit, collaborative-project, represents a serious call-to-action for iPhone developers. With 6 applications pledging support at launch, developers will need to implement the copy / paste framework into their apps before they're able to interact with others. In summary: community adoption will be key. OpenClip could easily see widespread support, especially since Apple has publicly declared the feature to be low on their list of priorities. Regardless, OpenClip actually hopes to become obsolete in the future, realizing that true system-wide copy & paste is not possible without Apple being part of the solution. Nonetheless, exciting strides are being made, and we'll keep you up-to-date as more applications jump on board the initiative.