[iomatic]

Yes, I sat up the other night thinking about this.

Tap-drag (one motion), seems like the obvious way to select from one point to the next.
Double-tap to select a word, triple-tap to select a line, and quadruple-tap to select all.

Gesture ("V"-like check) to Copy anywhere on screen.
Use a gesture ("Z"-like, or "X" in one motion, like a "D", almost) to Cut anywhere on screen.
Tap-tap-drag to paste. (tap, lift, drag, as opposed to above single-motion) anywhere on screen. You'd probably want to position your cursor in the appropriate spot prior to pasting.

Of course tap-hold should provide a contextual menu that allows you to either cut/copy/paste.

Critiques? Thoughts?


Sorry if it's a repeat (please merge, if so).

[analogika]

Originally Posted by iomatic 

Yes, I sat up the other night thinking about this.

Tap-drag (one motion), seems like the obvious way to select from one point to the next.

That already gets you the magnifying glass for cursor placement.

Or are you talking about *tap*-*tap-hold*?
That gets pretty complex for an on-the-go phone that Apple is hell-bent on keeping as simple as possible, for a user-base aged from 20-80.

[macuser9909]

The best example of copy/paste is in this video posted awhile back.
YouTube - iPhone Copy and Paste

[::maroma::]

When Apple implements it (yeah, I said "when", cuz I'm trying to will it to happen), it will be intuitive and easy for sure. Thats something you can always bank on with Apple.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by macuser9909 

The best example of copy/paste is in this video posted awhile back.
YouTube - iPhone Copy and Paste

That I like - 'cuz although it's complex, it's not something you're likely to encounter by accident.

[iomatic]

Originally Posted by analogika 

That already gets you the magnifying glass for cursor placement.

Or are you talking about *tap*-*tap-hold*?
That gets pretty complex for an on-the-go phone that Apple is hell-bent on keeping as simple as possible, for a user-base aged from 20-80.

Hmm. Two-fingers? So you get zoom and select?

[iomatic]

Naw, my way is better.

[iomatic]

http://gizmodo.com/5059295/blackberr...-multitouchily

Damn, I'm about to cry.

[BRussell]

I like that - two fingers on text means select. Drag your fingers apart and more is selected. Then lift fingers and one-finger touch and drag to change selected portion.

[analogika]

How would that be distinguished from zoom on the iPhone?

Answer: It wouldn't.

Fail.

[BRussell]

Ah yes.

Apparently they haven't implemented copy/paste because they've exhausted everything in the multi-touch interface already.

[analogika]

Maybe they just haven't found a way that isn't stupid confusing or uncontrollably fiddly while NOT breaking what they've already established as usability fundamentals.

[Aron Peterson]

The best way to do it would be how Blackberry does it. Choose Select from a menu (Apple would have to implement a menu or button in the pop up keyboard)to go into a text selection mode. Then select text and copy from the menu. After that it automatically goes back to navigation control mode. The paste option remains active.

[iomatic]

I'm sure Apple could do better than a contextual menu.

[Aron Peterson]

Originally Posted by iomatic 

I'm sure Apple could do better than a contextual menu.

Then implementing a gesture is the only other way to switch from finger navigation mode to a text selection mode. A contextual menu however would allow for other common file operations such as open, save, save as, send to, etc

[iomatic]

We were close.

[Spheric Harlot]

The problem I see with Apple's solution is that it's double-tap in some contexts, and click-and-hold in others (where double-tap is already assigned to zoom).

While this is understandable given existing features, it is broken in a quite fundamental way.

It will still work well, and it's quite elegantly solved (especially with the drag for start and end points), but

[slugslugslug]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The problem I see with Apple's solution is that it's double-tap in some contexts, and click-and-hold in others (where double-tap is already assigned to zoom).

While this is understandable given existing features, it is broken in a quite fundamental way.

It will still work well, and it's quite elegantly solved (especially with the drag for start and end points), but

Yeah, I saw double-tap in the Engadget liveblog and thought, "What? That means zoom!"

I still think they should've done it the way I posted in some other thread here: single tap with multiple fingers lets you do context-dependent (i.e. context being whether you're in an editable area) manipulations. I can't think of any function on an iPhone that requires a quick 2-finger tap, but if there are any, a 3-finger tap would work fine for the cut/copy/paste method.

Ah, well, guess I should have posted my idea to apple.com/feedback instead of here.