Former Apple engineer details why the first iPhone didn’t have copy and paste - 9to5Mac

We’re now discussing rumors about the next iPhone featuring 8K video and a new display, but it’s hard to believe that once the iPhone didn’t even have copy and paste options.

Now former Apple software engineer and designer Ken Kocienda has revealed details about why the first iPhone didn’t have such features.

Kocienda, who joined Apple back in 2001, was one of the key engineers behind the iPhone.

Before working on the iPhone, Kocienda was on the team that created Apple’s Safari web browser – which guaranteed him an important role in the development of Apple’s first smartphone.

Now, as the iPhone nears its 15th anniversary on the market, the former Apple engineer decided to share some interesting stories about how Apple created the first iPhone.

Kocienda’s short and funny explanation is that Apple engineers didn’t have time to implement copy and paste on the first iPhone.

After the iPhone was launched, Kocienda and his team finally decided to work on copy and paste options, but it still took a while before the feature was ready for users.

The engineer explains that he came up with the “magnifying text loupe” idea to let users know where exactly they were pointing the text cursor, which was crucial to having copy and paste.

Another interesting detail about the text input system on the iPhone is that, according to the former Apple engineer, all styled text was originally based on WebKit.

Copy and paste options were introduced as part of iPhone OS 3.0 in 2009, which came pre-installed by default on the iPhone 3GS.