Review: CopierciN
by Jeff Noble
September 23, 2008
CoperciN v0.1 | Published by GomerciN | Via Cydia | Free | Released: 9-14-08
Overview
Holy scissors, Batman! Could it be... Nah. Millions have asked Apple for simple copy-and-paste on the iPhone. There's no way that a first-time programmer in Objective C beat Apple to the punch... or is there? Gizmodo said it best in their teaser:So now students are doing your dirty work and besting you, Apple—'bout time for you to jump in this ring, no?Though copy and paste on the iPhone has been explored before with MagicPad (only works within its notes app) and OpenClip (demise met with 2.1 firmware), CopierciN allows inter-app functionality, but is only available on jailbroken devices. While CopierciN only offers limited capabilities of copy and paste, it is an impressive and lauded first effort. With CopierciN, you'll be able to type and paste into a file, an SMS, Mail, or the Notes app while also being able to import text from any of these sources for pasting elsewhere.
Functionality
Admittedly, the creator of the app, GomerciN, says that the app is rudimentary, but you'll love the ability to finally be able to quickly and easily send common messages over SMS, use it to paste information into Notes or retrieve the information from your Notes and paste it into an email. Your initial screen will be blank. There was a moment of confusion for me. What am I supposed to do? I tapped on the great blankness, and voila, the iPhone's familiar keyboard showed up. I began my message, and the rest was completely intuitive. It is very easy to use. It all involves a steady finger and simply dragging across the text you'd like to copy or cut. Once you've got the text highlighted, you simply press the Menu button which brings up a dialog which allows you to export the text wherever you want it. The highlighting process is a bit tricky. You'll get the hang of it, but just keep trying. After all, the iPhone has been out more than a year and Steve Jobs couldn't pull this off. So be patient with GomerciN. You can also start from the Menu and copy or pull text from an SMS, Notes, Email, or a file. Be aware that this part of the app will pull the entire text of a note or email. You can't at this point highlight your desired text in those apps.
Review
CopierciN is a kind of "in face, Apple" app. I mean, how many more millions of iPhones have to be sold with users asking for copy and paste before Apple delivers? Heck, my Handspring Visor Deluxe which ran Palm OS back in 1999 had copy and paste even if it only had 8 mb of RAM. While it has some immediately useable features, the app is more of a "look what I can do" app than it is a full-featured copy and paste ability for the iPhone. Like I mentioned earlier, it can only functions within certain apps of the iPhone. However, it does this well and with few glitches. The dragging will take some practice. I had some problems with the cut function. After I'd "cut" once, it wouldn't let me cut again after a new highlight. Also, importing from Mail is a challenge. It doesn't designate which inbox or mail account you're looking at in the list. It's just labelled "Inbox," so you'll find yourself searching through them all if you have more than one mail account synced with your iPhone.
I simply can't say a whole lot of negative about this app - even given its beta feel. It's such a needed functionality that we all should be sending GomerciN a cup of coffee over Paypal. If this is a first project, I can't wait to see what else he might create.
