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Since the release of iPhone, hundreds of applications have come out providing specific features. Though interesting features were present in these applications, there were a few things which were not included like the copy and paste option between applications.

The copy and paste option was first introduced in the iPhone through “Magic Pad”. The question here arises that if Magic Pad was already there, what was the need of an application? Well the copy and paste option only worked within the Magic Pad and not with different applications. This is why there is a need of ‘OpenClip’ comes in. It allows you to copy and paste stuff through out various applications without infringing the Apple iPhone SDK agreement.

Lets see how Apple’s SDK agreement isn’t violated. Apple doesn’t allow applications to run in the background because they think that it would occupy a lot of iPhone’s resources. Furthermore developers can’t create a plugin that can work with other iPhone apps (they’re making developers work hard). The OpenClip framework uses a shared space on the iPhone so if an application uses OpenClip, it comes into that area and read/write from it. This is how it works with multiple applications.

OpenClip is a non-profit open source community project initiated by Zac White. Whenever a developer adds the OpenClip framework to an iPhone app, that app gains the copy and paste functionality.

The framework is very easy to use. It contains several unreleased versions which includes MobileChat, Dial Zero, Package Tracker, WordPress, Twittelator, Magic Pad, etc.

Lets have an example; if you have to copy a tweet from Twittelator, all you have to do is just go to that tweet and hold it by pressing, you will get the option to copy either the complete tweet or the URL. After copying it, just go to the other application (in the current scenario its WordPress) and paste it over there using clipboard. The interesting thing is that it will show you the snap of that person too.

As HTML is supported by the WordPress, you can paste the HTML code in it. Magic Pad on the other hand doesn’t support the HTML code so if you paste the code in it, it will automatically turn into the plain text. Now thats cool, isn’t it?

Though OpenClip is useful, its not mandatory. Apple did consider the option but it was not the priority. Have a look on the following video by Cali Lewis of GeekBrief.tv to have more information about the OpenClip.

Cut and Paste for iPhone from Cali Lewis on Vimeo.