Update: Ed just hooked us up with version 1.1 of CopyShare. More soon!
About a week and a half ago now I came across an application called ‘Copy Share’ by Ed Lea. We’ve seen Ed before. Remember TV Plus? Ed beat UK television network ‘Sky‘ to the jump with his TV programming application. It was one of the first true apps to include the ability for users to one-tap record from the iPhone or iPod touch, and apart from a few niggles, we absolutely loved it ..
But Ed wasn’t stopping there. I picked up myself a copy of Copy Share, and I have to say it’s possibly the best £1.19 I’ve ever spent. Literally. Copy Share [App Store] is an application for iPhone and iPod touch which takes copy and pasting on just your iPhone or iPod touch to brand new levels. Not only does Copy Share allow you to copy and paste between multiple iPhone’s and iPod touch’s, in fact Copy Share allows you to copy and paste between any iPhone, iPod touch or Mac on the same local Wi-Fi Network.
This concept is ingenious. It literally allows you to copy and paste anything, between any device.
Using CopyShare
To use CopyShare in conjunction with your Mac, you’ll need to download Copy Share for Mac which is absolutely FREE, and available here. It’s worth noting that the software currently requires Mac OSX 10.5 Leopard (or later). Once you have the software, we can start copy and pasting!
Lets say (for example) that I wanted to copy and paste an image from Mobile Safari on my iPhone 3GS, to a Pages document on my iMac. To do this I’d simply tap and hold an image from Mobile Safari, save it to my iPhone’s photo library, and from Photos.app copy that photo onto my iPhone clipboard. But you already knew that.
Now, the ingenious bit. I can now use Copy Share and transfer my iPhone’s entire clipboard containing the photo onto my iMac upstairs, or the Mac Mini downstairs – or both if I feel the need to.
To do this I simply launch Copy Share, and tap ‘iPhone 3GS’ under ‘Local Clipboard’. From here the app will take to me to a preview of what is currently on the iPhone’s (or IPod touch)’s clipboard (in this case a photo of a seagull I tweeted yesterday.).
The app then gives you a pop-up context menu. This menu states all currently connected Macs on your local Wi-Fi network which are running Copy Share. From here it’s just a tap to transfer your device’s clipboard to your Mac.
Nifty eh?
Is there a limit on how much text I can paste with Copy Share?
That is the question I found myself asking, and I put the question to Ed, the developer of Copy Share. Here’s what he had to say:
“There’s not a limit you’d realistically hit (the app doesn’t impose one). The GUI will truncate text to display it on the screen if needed.”
Copy Share currently supports the copy and pasting of both plain text and photos, with more said to be coming in future updates. I really like this application. In fact I’m using it daily. As far as I can see, it has no caveats. None.
Overall
Although the application doesn’t have the most graphically intensive UI, it doesn’t need it. Copy Share is a utility for those of us who like to copy and paste, daily. This app completely removes the iPhone OS boundaries of copy and pasting on just one device, and catapults the functionality across Apple’s entire device ecosystem.
Current Status: Highly Recommended
Reviewed at: v1.0
Reviewed on Firmware: 3.1 (Beta 2) / iPhone 3GS
Download size: 0.2 MB
Released on: 04th July 2009
Retails for: £1.19
Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1 and 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G / iPhone 3GS
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