Today at MIX10 Microsoft told our sibling site WMExperts that there would be no cut, copy, and paste in Windows Phone 7 Series, which follows on the news of an Apple iPhone-style closed app market and lack of 3rd party multitasking. When the original iPhone 2G debuted in 2007 without cut, copy, and paste, multitasking, and most importantly a third-party app platform, it led certain editors-in-chief who shall remain nameless (though not pictured-less) wondered -- and not unjustifiably -- if the iPhone could be considered a smartphone?

iPhone 2.0 brought the 3rd party apps. iPhone 3.0 brought cut, copy, paste and a host of other "missing" features. iPhone 4.0 may even bring multitasking. Regardless, we thought the iPhone 2G certainly was a smartphone then, and now, and certainly think the same about Windows Phone 7 Series, and Palm webOS when it debuted lacking certain features. It takes an incredible amount of effort to launch a new mobile OS and no company, not Apple, not Google, not even Microsoft have unlimited time, talent, and resources to nail everything in version 1.0. Our question remains, to get cut, copy, and paste (or whatever feature you think is missing), what other feature would you give up? Notifications? The new user experience? There's an opportunity cost to everything.

Of course, when Apple launched iPhone 1.0 it wasn't leaving behind a large existing user base accustomed to many of those now missing features the way Microsoft is with Windows Phone 7 Series. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see if they can grab enough new users to make up for all the ones they're gone to lose. Because, if all those Windows 6.x users are suddenly faced with something new and different, it may not be too far a stretch to go for a different platform entirely. Including an iPhone. Which has cut, copy, and paste and may just have multitasking by then. So to them, to you, potential iPhone switchers:

Welcome! How you doing?

Pastebot [$1.99 - iTunes link], the delicious-looking new clipboard manager from Tapbots brings their flare for fantastic, and fantastically original user interface to iPhone and iPod touch cut, copy, and paste. (And, yes, insert -- it took Apple 2 years and a 3.0 to give iPhone users the much-requested clipboard function to begin with -- sarcasm here).

The usage case is simple and elegant -- anything you've copied or cut to the iPhone clipboard is automatically added to Pastebot when you launch the app. Up to 99 such clippings can be stored at any one time, and inside Pastebot you can title them, organize them into folders (for example, keep email boilerplate handy), copy them back to the clipboard, share them (including via embedded email, which makes that boilerplate incredibly functional), search them (on Google), and even run some automated actions on them like changing case, decoding and encoding HTML, find and replace, quote, etc. Images can also be brightened, converted to B&W, inverted, etc. And Mac users can get the free desktop companion for sync'y goodness as well.

TiPb was able to try it out for a few days already, and I liked it enough to run out and buy it on launch (disclosure -- I'm an easy mark for great design and functionality).

Like Weightbot and Convertbot before it, Pastebot is a powerhouse in a delightful robot candy shell. By the same token, some may argue Tapbots trades speed-of-use for joy-to-use and that's certainly valid. If you didn't appreciate the robotic gimmick of their previous fare, you likely won't enjoy it here either. However, if you're serious about your clipboard and love you some innovative interface, check out Pastebot and let us know what you think.

Gallery after the break!

PCalc developer James Thomson is one of our favorites because he not only makes great apps, but he seems to love doing it, and always figures out new, positive, and productive ways to get our attention.

This time around it isn't just the release of an iPhone 3.0 compatible version of PCalc for iPhone ($9.99 - iTunes link) that includes support for copy and paste (and a couple of new vertical button layouts, one for engineers, one for programmers), it's how he built one version of the app that supports both iPhone 2.2.1 and iPhone 3.0 at the same time. An iPhone version of Apple's "universal binary" concept, as it were.

We're not sure he's the first to do this -- and according to Twitter he isn't either -- but we hope he does write up the process when the 3.0 SDK NDA (non-disclosure agreement) lifts so other developers can do it as well. It's an elegant solution to say the least.

Now to see if we can not only paste some complex calculations... but understand them!

Back before the iPhone, I was using one of GRC.com's long, pseudo-random passwords for my WPA-protected Wi-Fi network. Typing it into iPhone 1.x, even iPhone 2.x was a non-starter, however, so I shrank it down considerably.

Similar security-conscious folks have lamented not only the lack of copy and paste on the iPhone, but especially the lack of "paste-into-password field" to support just those kinds of super-secure strings.

Well, it looks like we might be getting them -- along with the previously discussed copy and paste features, in iPhone 3.0.

Whether this makes it or not into the final release version is something only time will tell (because Apple, of course, isn't saying).

But we want it.

Our sibling site PreCentral.net has gotten their mobile accomplishers on yet another (rumored to be) leaked internal document. This one supposedly comes from Sprint and details what, to PreCentral.net, are some interesting factoids. To us, however, they represent some far more interesting questions:

• The picture above shows what looks to be fairly user-toxic troubleshooting steps for Pre and memory management. While the iPhone has memory issues as well, you either reboot or restore. Here, steps are approaching the level of finicky task management and triage Apple has made fun of in previous iPhone keynotes.
• Tethering looks to be gone, which may be a bad sign for iPhone users hoping AT&T would throw it in when OS 3.0 -- which enables it -- rolls around this summer.
• Also, no cut and paste from web pages, which is interesting given that webOS is based on web 2.0 style pages. Shouldn't that one be a gimme?

For much, much more, check out the source blog and let us know how the Palm Pre is developing, competitively to the iPhone, from your point of view. (Of course, we won't know any final feature set or functionality levels until it actually ships... sometime before June 30).

As widely rumored (yep, Kevin Rose was right!), Apple announced Copy and Paste today for iPhone OS 3.0, with "cut" relegated to apps that support it (?).

It works differently in different apps, this is what we can figure out:

Mail & Notes (and 3rd party?): double tap to begin. Drag small delineator icons to start and end of text string you want to copy.

Safari (and embedded browsers): Tap and hold to begin. Selects blocks of text.

Photos: Tap the action button to begin. Select multiple photos to paste into email. (Unknown if Apple will scale or compress before sending?)

Universally, it appears you can shake the iPhone to undo which while gimmicking, is also all kinds of awesome. You can also select paragraphs by holding your finger down on them, and Copy and Paste WILL pick up HTML including text formatting and links!

[Photo via Apple Insider]

UPDATED 2: As commenters have pointed out, Rose doesn't say "no MMS", he says he doesn't know about MMS. He does say Apple is not providing Video Recording due to technical limitations: writing too frequently to the NAND Flash memory would burn it out. (While it's true writing to NAND is destructive and thus, there are limited write cycles, Dieter tells us devices like the HTC Touch Diamond and Sumsung Omnia allow writing to internal storage, so who knows?). Basically, the gist of Rose's rumor is that iPhone 3.0 will have Cut/Copy and Paste, and "Palm Pre"-like features...

UPDATE: MacRumors has posted slightly clearer details on Rose's description of how cut/copy and paste works, along with a link to the video (NSFW-L):

Double-tap to bring up a magnifying glass with two quotes, you drag quotes around text string to select, and then you can cut/copy and paste.

ORIGINAL: Kevin's back. Back again. Digging iPhone rumors. Tell ya friends! Not iChat Mobile this time, unfortunately, but Gizmodo is reporting that during his SXSW live Diggnation, Kevin Rose - who's flubbed almost all iPhone rumors, but nailed iTunes and iPod nano scoops -- put it on the line again for iPhone 3.0 pre-Preview Event:

• Cut and paste (as previously rumored) using double-tap to zoom and activate, pinch boundaries, then options pop up.
• "Palm Pre" features. (Could that be integrated social network contacts, unified messaging, better notifications, multi-tasking?)

Also, what will NOT be included?

• MMS (despite previous rumors)
• Video recording

What do we think? Will Rose be right or wrong this time? Tuesday's just under two days away!

Prior to Macworld 2009, Daring Fireball mused openly about how neat it would be for the iPod Shuffle to get voice functionality, and on Wednesday last it did. Now Gruber is reminding us that his "wish-list" for iPhone OS 3.0 includes:

a new home screen app (a.k.a. SpringBoard), designed from the ground up for a system where users have a few dozen or more extra apps installed. Managing dozens of apps on the iPhone today is simply a pain in the ass. Second, maybe an answer to the question of where the background notification API is — you know, the one we were told at WWDC to expect a few months ago, but which we haven’t heard a word about since. And maybe — pretty please, Mr. Forstall, with sugar on top — copy and paste.

But is this really a wish-list, or a (somewhat disingenuous?) way of passing along actual, leaked information on the new OS? MacRumors seems to think the latter, saying they have reason to believe a new SpringBoard, Push Notification (or Background Tasks), and Cut/Copy and Paste will indeed be on the iPhone OS 3.0 feature list. For good measure, they're also tossing in magnetometer support (i.e. compass functionality like the Android G1 enjoys).

Added to yesterday's rumors from Boy Genius about MMS and Tethering, however, and we're afraid things are lining up just a little too much like a 3.0 panacea for iPhone's previous OS "greatest misses". And if that's the case, it might be expectations -- rather than notifications -- that get "pushed" for next Tuesday's iPhone OS 3.0 Sneak Peak. (We're nothing if not fickle audiences, after all).

So, are these really inside information on what we'll be seeing come March 17? Or are these truly more wish-lists than feature-lists?

(And are we waiting on Kevin Rose to add Mobile iChat to the 3.0 mix?)

What's that? iPhone news at MWC09? It's true. I just got back from a meeting with DocsToGo and they showed off an early version of their app. So far Word document editing is a go, Spreadsheet editing is definitely in the plan but not quite up and running yet. They're tossing in document viewing for both plus PDFs as well -- which means you can have all of your documents in one spot.

Read on to find out how it all works, where the iPhone kinks are (since Apple limits what developers can do easily), and how we're loving their implementation of (in-app) Cut and Paste!

Apple obviously won't let DataViz go in and mess with their mail client, so email attachments are going to be pretty rough (read: non-starter). However, and here's where things get mysterious, DataViz does plan on having a desktop client that will allow you to sync your documents over to the iPhone and back again and the DocsToGo app on the iPhone will be able to "get around the sandbox" of not being able to store files locally. How exactly will all this happen? DataViz will wink, but can't say yet.

I did get a pretty good look at the Word doc editing and I have to say it's pretty slick. There's a single editing bar at the bottom which you can swipe left and right to get at all the various options. Full support for inline images, formatting, outlining, and more is all here. Also here, Cut and Paste done in a very clever way. You can:

• Double tap a word to select it.
• Triple tap a paragraph to select it.
• In magnify view, you can hold down your finger with the cursor in the same spot until the magnifying glass "pulses," which will then let you select character by character.

Apple -- please make sure you let this app in and when you do, take a very close look at their text selection method, because we're liking it.

DataViz hopes to have the whole shootin' match (perhaps minus spreadsheet editing, depending on their dev timeline) sometime in Q2 2009.

Two years since Steve Jobs pulled the original iPhone from his pocket at Macworld 2007, and still no cut/copy and paste functionality, and none in sight. Head of iPhone Marketing, Greg "Joz" Joswiack famously said it wasn't a priority. Still, we've seen both the similarly capacitive touchscreens, Google Android G1 and BlackBerry Storm, show off versions of (multi-)touch based cut/copy and paste. We've also seen some magnifying-loop-based proof-of-concepts and independent end-runs around the omission both via shared frameworks and JavaScript bookmarklets, but still nothing official, nothing from Apple.

One sometimes bandied-about suggestion as to why the iPhone still lacks cut/copy and paste is because Apple hasn't figured out an elegant solution. They want a simple gesture that can be used quickly, easily, and consistently in any app, and is as intuitive to the user as pinch to zoom.

Well maybe we can help them out. If we want to see iPhone OS 2.3 at Macworld, or even iPhone OS 3.0 at WWDC in June 2009, how should they do it? What gestures should they use? What procedure should they implement?

If you were Steve Jobs, striding down the deep, dark sub-basement hall to the secret iPhone development lab, how would you tell the terrified techies to "just make it work"?

The previous attempt to make an end run around the iPhone's lack of cut/copy and paste involved shared code called OpenClip and relied on a loophole Apple closed in iPhone OS 2.1

This latest tilt at the text editing windmill targets only 2 apps instead:

Pastebud—as the service is called—works using two bookmarks in Safari. One prepares and loads the page you are viewing, ready to select text at the touch of a finger. From there, you can copy any text you want and create a new mail message with that text in it. In addition to that, you will be able to copy and paste in the text field of a different web page.

Check out the full story and video over at Gizmodo. And then let us know if you think this is enough -- for now -- to satisfy your cut/copy and paste cravings?

Back in August AT&T sent out a customer satisfaction survey to all iPhone owners. Well now it seems a new survey is being sent out to all of us on the AT&T network asking how the 2.1 firmware is working for us and what we want to see next on your iPhone 3G.

Now don't get too excited yet! Just because they are asking what we want does not necessarily mean we will get it. Keep in mind Apple has stated before that certain features such as copy/paste and directional GPS take a back seat to other issues that need addressing so on and so forth. But it is better than AT&T and Apple flat out ignoring us right? So at least it is a start.

Apple Insider states:

The questionnaire asks owners to pick the top five hardware or software add-ons they'd like to see and include many of the most prominent requests made in the community, including cutting and pasting text, built-in instant messaging, Flash/Java support and MMS messaging.

So when and if you get this survey, be sure to speak your mind and let AT&T what know what you want. This is our chance... they seem to be listening. (Or at least they are pretending to be!)

[Via Appleinsider]

Sure, iPhone 2.2 is getting better and better, but after 2 years and the best graphical user interface team ever put on Jobs' vegan earth, we still don't have official cut, copy, and paste functionality. Blackberry Storm, however, which hasn't even hit the market yet? Looks like they'll get it Day One.

Our frenemies over a Crackberry.com pass along the deets (via BGR), while a commenter updates on the functionality:

What it says is that you simultaneously place one finger at the beginning of the text you want to copy and one finger at the end of the text you want to copy. This will highlight the selection. You can remove your fingers at this point. If the selection isn't exactly what you want you can touch at the beginning of the highlight and slide the highlight to where you want. Likewise for the end of the highlight. Then there are two ways to copy. First way: "click" (as in touch the screen and press) in the middle of the highlight. This brings up a menu box with the copy command. Alternatively you can press the physical menu button and select copy.

Blarg! We think our brains just vomited.

Dieter points out that this won't work on the iPhone, as some of those gestures, like pinch, are already taken for things like zoom, but there are enough proof of concepts around now that Apple really should be able to nail it. Can we finally move up the priority list, Joz?

(Micro schadenfreuda dept.: Chad points us to the just sneak-peaked Blackberry App Center (kudos on the original naming there fellas!), which is -- drum roll please -- CARRIER bound.)

Wired's blog picked up a story from iPhone Atlas today about a minor MobileSafari browser UI change that sees the (defaults to Google) search box surfaced right on top beside the URL address box (currently it only pops up when the top box is activated to save on vertical real estate). To compensate, the Refresh button gets demoted and tucked inside the refresh box. Not sure about the usability on this change yet...?

The more interesting speculation is about cut and paste, which Wired claims NO specific info on, but offers this as part of the ongoing search for some reason why Apple hasn't yet implemented this seemingly core functionality:

It's possible that Apple is taking so long to implement copy and paste not because it is difficult, but because Apple is reinventing it. Imagine a system-wide menu added to all applications which, instead of shuffling items off to a clipboard, lists all the places you can send that file (or text string). This would be like the existing "Open with" option available in the Mac's right-click menu -- each application effectively reports to the OS exactly what kind of files it can handle and the OS remembers this. Thus a picture could be sent to not only the Photo app, but to any other photo program. Text could be sent directly to any open dialog box in, say, Safari.

Sounds good to us. What about it, Joz?

We recently covered the new OpenClip project, and expansion of what was first demonstrated with MagicPad, and we liked both their implementation and their moxy in trying to pip Apple to the cut and paste post. Not everyone was as entirely impressed as us, however. John Gruber of Daring Fireball questioned whether or not the developers were really respecting the App Store SDK agreement. Since OpenClip aware applications write to their own sandbox'd Documents directory, but read the last-modified chunk from other applications Documents directory, Gruber considers it more of a loophole, and cites Apple's iPhone OS Programming Guide:

Not simply that no other application can write to, but which no other application can access. That this restriction is not yet enforced at a technical level (such as is the case with an app attempting to write outside its own sandbox) does not mean it’s permitted.

Worse yet, Gruber points out that the current Beta 4 of the upcoming 2.1 firmware DOES enforce complete denial-of-access to other application's Documents directory:

The OpenClip demo apps, which work as advertised on iPhone OS 2.0.2, do not work in the current 2.1 beta, because apps are no longer able to read or even see other apps’ sandboxes.3 To be clear, this change is clearly not in response to OpenClip; Apple began seeding the 2.1 betas with these tightened sandbox restrictions before OpenClip debuted, and the iPhone OS Programming Guide has stated all along that apps can’t “access” the contents of other sandboxes.

However, I'm not entirely certain any of that matters. OpenClip, based on my understanding, was never intended to be a long-term solution, merely a proof-of-concept to show that cut, copy, and paste could be done in an elegant manner on the iPhone, to keep a spotlight on the continued lack of cut, copy, and paste support from Apple, and to encourage the discussion of the issue and implementation.

In that regard, I think they've already succeeded.

Following up on the earlier post about OpenClip, the new open-source framework for implementing a shared (i.e. cross-application) clipboard for the iPhone, the video above highlights developer Zac White's presentation at iPhoneDevCamp2. Not enough for you? Okay, TiPb had another chance to talk with the innovative folks at Proximi (makers of MagicPad, the original proof-of-concept for this functionality), who were kind enough to share a few more details with our readers.

Check out he Q&A after the break!

(Responses courtesy of Brian Radmin of Proximi fame)

TiPb: Hi Brian. Thanks for the heads-up on OpenClip. We have a few questions for you, but is there anything you'd like to start off with?

Brian: Hey Rene. To preface this, our sole intentions are to promote app-to-app copy / paste, not Proximi, Inc. While we made MagicPad and worked with Zac White to establish OpenClip.org, it is truly a collaborative effort with most of the credit being owed to him (Zac is a student developer at the University of Oklahoma).

Watching Cali Lewis' video, it looks like the OpenClip implementation UI is varying by application. (i.e., slide-up buttons for Twittelator, static buttons for WordPress, and the existing pop-ups in MagicPad). Is this intentional, simply providing a Core-like service Apps can use as they wish, or are you eventually hoping to standardize the interface for usability, like the CMD/CTRL X/C/V conventions?

In our proposal for copy / paste / text-selection candidate (http://magicpad.proximi.com/video.php), we discussed the different types of applications and why we felt variation in UI experience was necessary.

Do you still see this effort as "proof-of-concept" pushing Apple towards implementing cut/copy/paste themselves (making you obsolete, as you mentioned last time), or are you now figuring it will take so long for something official to come down the pipe, you want to provide truly robust solution yourselves?

We are definitely hoping Apple makes OpenClip obsolete. True system-wide copy / paste is not possible without Apple. We just hope our efforts help speed the process along and provide additional utility to iPhone users in the meantime.

Finally, is auto-correction playing nicely with cut and paste yet? (Or is Gruber going to yell at us again =) )

We've taken a lot of time to implement auto-correction in MagicPad, and while we've had success with Roman character keyboards, non-Roman languages are not functioning properly. The lack of Apple's documentation on the auto-correction method is making it really difficult to integrate with our UI for text-selection. Trust me, we're trying, but Gruber will still be yelling at us... =)

Thanks Brian! Can't wait to see more OpenClip aware Apps. Also can't wait for Apple to get serious about implementing this (or whatever their ultimate take on the functionality ends up being) officially.

Cali Lewis over at Geekbrief.tv recounts how iPhone App Store developer Juviwhale (who previously spoke to TiPb about his work on MagicPad) met up with a college student named Zac White at Dev Camp, who turned MagicPad's localized cut/copy/paste functionality into cross-application gold with the open-source OpenClip framework:

Apple forbids applications from running in the background because it would take up too much of the iPhone’s resources. Also, developers are not allowed to create plug-ins that make their apps work with other apps on the iPhone. Zac White’s Open Clip framework uses a shared space on the iPhone. Any application that includes Open Clip can then access the common area and write to it, and read from it, thereby enabling copy and paste between participating apps.

Bottom line, it looks like any developer can add OpenClip, and instantly gain access to the shared cut/copy/paste pool. (Two of the apps demonstrated, sing a similar slide-up set of buttons to the proof-of-concept David Friedman showed off a few weeks back)

If this doesn't get Joz to bump official support up the list... it may not even matter soon.

(So long as auto-correction plays nicely with this implementation?)

David Friedman writes in to let us know he's thrown his hat into the 'This is how I think Apple should implement cut-and-paste' ring. His idea is simple, intuitive, and doesn't look to interfere with the current magnifying glass insertion point UI.

Here it is in a nutshell -- when you have the magifying glass up, there's a button you can press to toggle the various things you need for cut and paste -- select, cut, copy, and paste. David recommends that the options shown would be contextual based on whether or not you have anything in your clipboard. When you're in a text-entry field, that toggle button would appear in place of the space bar area at the bottom, while areas with text that lack text entry (like Safari) would need an unobtrusive button to appear when in the text-selection mode.

All in all, we like it.

• No convoluted finger gymnastics
• No trying to remember how many fingers you need to use for a given action
• Compatible with the current UI. In fact, it's consistent and keeps the current text-selection metaphor of the UI intact. It just adds to it.
• Easily discoverable by all users

What do y'all think? Feasible?

Tired of waiting for a cut, copy, and paste on the iPhone? MagicPad -- a Note App replacement that also features Rich Text editing (buh-bye Marker Felt!) -- sure was. Witness the above proof-of-concept video. Ladies and gentlemen, the holy grail of iPhone feature.

Curious as to how they implemented their solution, and what challenges they faced? So were we, so we asked them. Read on for their answer!

Head of Product Development for Proximi, Juviwhale, told TiPb:

"The greatest challenge we faced when while developing MagicPad was attempting to develop a User Interface solution for text selection, copying and pasting on the iPhone that was simple and elegant yet versatile enough to be applied system wide.

What we have implemented in MagicPad is the first step towards a larger goal. We feel that MagicPad is a case study for the implemetation of standard UI for text selection and actions on the iPhone.

We also hope that Apple will soon define and implement a user interface for the iPhone which will make the demand for our product evaporate.

MagicPad is a starting point, a limited demonstration of what we are proposing as a candidate User Interface for text actions on the iPhone. We understand that whatever User Interface Apple implements will most likley define how users interact we touchscreen interfaces for generations.

We will actually detail our full comprehesive UI with a step-by-step video tutorialls on how our text editing system could work accross the iphone on our website shortly."

The referenced video, which is basically our thesis statement and thought process behind our proposed system and how it would integrate system-wide, should be on our site shortly. We are not marginalizing the complexity of the issue and understand why Apple has taken so long to implement something; copy & paste on the touchscreen is akin to the next generation of right-click. An elegant solution doesn't just happen overnight, and MagicPad is hopefully just a launching point.

Just like early Mac developers helped further push the platform and provide impetus for solutions Apple has not yet had considered, here's hoping Apps like MagicPad do to same for the iPhone.

Thanks to Proximi, Brian Radmin, and Juviwhale.

Last night Apple began seeding iPhone firmware 2.1 and SDK Beta 1 to registered developer program members (those who paid the $99 fee and were accepted, and have App Store uploading privileged's). Word came in early about new features in CoreLocation and Notification Server APIs. Now Engadget is adding the nigh-mythical holy grail of basic smartphone functionality to the list of maybes: Cut, Copy, and Paste!

Another bit which may or may not make it into 2.1 is copy/paste. We're still both hopeful and skeptical, but supposedly in the new version of the WebKit framework exists commands for "plugins," "copy," "paste," "cut," and some others. We can't confirm if these really exist (and if they do, we don't know how they've actually been there, or if they're simply holdovers from the desktop WebKit frameworks), so don't hold your breath.

Greg “Joz” Joswiak, Apple’s head of iPod and iPhone marketing has previously stated that cut, copy, and paste is on the future feature list, but with limited time and resources, Apple didn't get to it for 2.0. Will 2.1 be different?

What do you think? Any breath holding on your end?

Greg "Joz" Joswiak, Apple's head of iPod and iPhone marketing shed some light on the iPhone 3G/2.0 and some of its highly requested, yet still missing functionality, like where's our ability to select text, cut it or copy it, and paste it?

Apple has a priority list of features, and they got as far as they could down that list with this model

Why isn't there a constant yet ever-so-slightly-disappointed voice telling us we missed our last ten exists and threatening to "re-calculate"?

[T]here are some murky "complicated issues" preventing driving directions apps at the moment. "It will evolve. I think our developers will amaze us."

Like TomTom?

With regards to David Pogue's claim that Apple said the iPhone 3G GPS antenna was too small for turn-by-turn?

Find his answer after the jump!

That's wrong; the iPhone's GPS is just like the GPS in other phones, many of which do provide driving directions

We can view Microsoft Office and Apple iWork docs in iPhone 2.0, why can't we edit or create them?

[T]here might be issues with applications each having their own file space. "There's no cross-application file structure."

TiPB is still waiting on DocsToGo as well. What about unspecified technical issues?

[D]idn't know of any such hold-ups.

Does that mean there aren't any, there are but they remain unknown, or that the ones he knows off are all very specified?

Time, and future 2.x firmware updated will hopefully tell.

Mike and I mentioned this in the podcast, briefly, and so here's the full skinny. Apple has filed a patent for basically all the weird and wacky things you might want to do with a multitouch trackpad (of the kind found on the MacBook Air). Basically, the idea is you slap a certain number of fingers down to go into certain modes - 1 finger for standard stuff, 2 fingers for scrolling (plus some switching around for Exposé features), and so on.

The juicy one, though, is the "Thumb plus 2 fingers" section, which shows how you could switch from scrolling around to go into an "Edit" mode -- one where you could select text, copy it, paste it, and so on. Exactly what the doctor ordered for the iPhone.

Also noted on the podcast, but I'll repeat it here: Once Apple manages to add system-level select, cut, and paste to the iPhone, can document editing be far behind?

AppleInsider | Apple filing spills details of advanced multi-touch pads for Macs