The iPhone also didn't have copy and paste for a while. And the trade-off with more options is they're work to maintain and users are confused by them.
Apple will always prioritize critical scenarios over nice to have. None of these things are technically difficult, it’s just time. I’m willing to believe they released too early, but at some point you have to start learning from real users.
The reason you couldn't cut and paste was that Apple doesn't release a feature until they polished it. They didn't let you make apps until they'd made the App Store, and there was a year of complaining, but when they finally did it they nailed it. Ditto cut and paste, which now works better on the iPhone than it does on anything else.
Also things like the Edge Panel clipboard are a game changer for power users - ie save two pieces of information from first app, open second app, paste the two just like you were in a Mac with Alfred or similar. I miss that every week on iOS...
Steve Jobs was heavily against hidden functionality (sorry there is a word for it I can't remember off the top of my head). It's why Macs had one-button mice for so long. It wasn't until the third major revision of the OS that iPhones got copy+paste!
> like copy & paste I think they want to get it right
This "they want to get it right" thing is nothing but apologetic stupidity.
Apple is not a magic company, they have a priority list and a limited number of resources to address that list.
Sometimes, features have to fall off the wayside. I suspect that copy and paste and notifications have been judged less important than other features, because frankly, Android's notifications have been perfect since day one, so it's not like there is no precedent.
The iPhone got some undeserved credit for being intuitive just because it was so limited. It did not even have copy/paste. Even now, it is far from obvious how to use undo (tap with three fingers). It’s when there are many features that great UI/UX designers shine.
Apple could've thrown copy and paste into the first iPhone, but they didn't because they didn't feel they had it right.
They might be in the process of actually designing an interface for formulas that actually expands the reach of such functionality. You know, something that the "I'm bad at math" crowd could actually dig into, make use of, and learn within.
If you release a basic not-that-hard-to-implement version of the functionality, it's WAY harder to drop in a new, innovative model afterwards. I think there's a lot of sense in waiting until they can get it right, if they're planning on doing something different with it--which, judging by the other UI departures they've made, I wouldn't be surprised if they are.
In some ways I think this is the environment Apple has cultivated (maybe not deliberately) over the years. Basic features like cut & paste are left out, and then announced in a later version to as though it's this great innovation. Not that this particular app is such a basic feature, but illustrates the reasons why there are so many single-function utility apps. And of course the danger of them for their developers, if they rely on them for their livelihood, is that Apple will at any moment swoop in and copy the most popular ones. For the record, I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that on its own, but there is when Apple doesn't let developers access iOS as deeply as they do themselves.
Apple is smart enough to determine what's in an photograph, but if I paste text into a sentence in iOS I still need to manually add spaces and format punctuation.
I will never forget the time iTunes deleted my music library, or it's inability to deduplicate identical songs.
I would love to see this on iPad and iPhone. I haven’t been too bothered by Apple’s rules, but in this case you can clearly see how they stifle innovation.
I couldn't disagree more. I just gave my father (who has an iPhone) his first Mac and he had no idea where to find applications until I showed him the Launchpad. It's a feature I would never use, but it's accessible with a single button press or click and looks and feels just like the familiar iOS interface.
Apple is doing something smart here. My guess is that more people have iPhones than Macs and they're betting that switchers will understand these new features and turn into across-the-board Apple fans.
I’m a bit happy we’re movinf back to just letting people do stuff and let the developers figure out how to make it work.
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