A former Apple engineer explains: Why was the first iPhone missing a feature we are all familiar with?
The first iPhone (2G) released 15 years ago was a revolutionary device, but lacked a significant function: the ability to copy and paste texts from place to place.
Now a former Apple engineer explains why
Niv Lillian
22/06/2022
Wednesday, 22 June, 2022, 11:48 Updated: 11:53
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The first iPhone (Photo: GettyImages)
The first iPhone, the device that defined the concept of smartphone, was launched 15 years ago, in June 2007. At the time, the iPhone was a revolutionary toy that revolutionized the world of cellular and mobile computing, but also as a PDA, it lacked one very significant function that came only later:
the ability to copy and paste Texts
from one application to another on the device.
Now, Ken Cousinda, a former Apple engineer who worked on the development of the first iPhone (you can read the full story on the development of the first iPhone here), explains why this feature was missing, and the reason is more surprising than you think: there just was no time to develop it.
Cousinda says the software team was busy working on more critical functions such as the keyboard, auto-correction and text input system, and there was simply no time to write the code for the copy / paste operation as well.
And so the engineer wrote:
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"The original iPhone did not have a cut / copy / paste operation. It is notorious! The quick explanation is that I just did not have time to do it properly. I had too many things like keyboard, auto-correction and text system to do. The design team also did not have time "So we postponed the development to the next version."
"There just was no time to write the code for the copy / paste operation either."
IPhone 2G (Photo: GettyImages)
Eventually, the copy / paste function was added to the device, and another Cousinda number whose magnifying glass for text was his idea, and also that initially the cursor position would bounce between letters, and the solution they found was to keep a touch input location so the cursor would stop at the last point From the screen.
These are small things, but the engineer's tweet gives a glimpse of how complex was actually the development of the devices we take for granted today.
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