Why did the iPhone wait so long to use copy-paste

The first iPhone crew member reveals why it took so long for the iPhone to get one of its basic features: Copy and Paste.

When Apple first introduced IPhone In 2007, the smartphone world changed forever. This speed of incredible innovation at the time was without some basic functionality.

Many years later, former Apple engineer Ken Cossinda explains why he did not include the option to copy and paste text into Apple’s original smartphone. We look forward to this yearIPhone 14Things were very different then.

The project was going at full speed

Ken Cossinda, who joined Apple in 2001, was one of the key engineers who created the first iPhone. He simply says that the company has never had time to think about integrating such a basic function.

Beyond the reason given, his team was already busy creating a virtual keyboard with an automatic editing system that took several attempts and got some sleepless nights for Apple engineers to get it right.

To make this keyboard possible, the Kocienda team had to use a virtual touch area larger than buttons. The iPhone recognizes the keys you want to type, even if you do not touch the button on your input screen.

Problems solving and tools needed to create upstream

After introducing the phone, his team finally got into it, and then it took a while for this feature to get to the end user.

The former Apple engineer also explains that before getting the copy-paste option, users must first find other necessary tools, such as a magnifying glass magnifying glass, in order for users to know the cursor in the text accurately.

Due to user perception our finger does not actually touch the intended area and the system has to take into account this dependence.

The curve of your fingers makes you feel that you are touching the screen higher than you are. So, the keys are redirected to calculate this. That’s why — to this day — it is hard to target taps while holding your mobile upside down. pic.twitter.com/xl8YaxvKKu

—Ken Kosinda (kocienda) June 19, 2022

A ” Touch the historical record (History of finger movements on the screen) should also be enabled to compensate for system delays, which detect the user’s finger with a lag and make the input inaccurate.

This history makes it possible to automatically detect the position of the user’s finger just a few milliseconds after the last entry, so that the cursor is in the correct position.

Another issue that the Apple team should look out for is the stylized fonts used in applications based on Safari’s webkit rendering engine. Whenever an application uses a custom font, it displays a small webpage of text.

When the text is not edited, the phone will display a static image of the content implicitly to save CPU, RAM and battery. The copy-paste option finally saw the light of day with version 3.0 (now renamed iOS) of the iPhone OS that came with the iPhone 3GS. This feature also gained its own TV space.

YouTube linkSubscribe to Frandroid

According to Cocienta, copying and pasting is not the only drawback of the first iPhone. It does not have multitasking mode due to lack of RAM and virtual memory.

The engineers then had to create a system called “Jetsum”, which would force the iPhone to use only one app at a time and stop all other background work to prevent performance issues.

Apple teams had to set aside some time to focus on the essentials and deliver this iPhone at the right time.

To follow us, we invite you Download our Android and iOS app. You can read our articles, files and watch our latest YouTube videos.