Apple had launched its first ever iPhone model back in 2007. However, despite the device being one of the most innovative products of its time, it did not feature a common function which is copy and paste. And now, a former company engineer has finally revealed why this was the case back then.
The original iPhone didn’t have cut/copy/paste. Infamous! The quickest explanation is that I didn’t have time to do it right. I had too much keyboard, autocorrection, and text system work to do. The design team didn’t have time either. So we passed on the feature for 1.0. https://t.co/SLncIxohkk
— Ken Kocienda (@kocienda) June 19, 2022
Ken Kocienda shared a tweet recently explaining why the copy and paste function was missing on the first iPhone model. Ken had joined the Cupertino based giant back in 2001 and had been one of the key engineers that worked on the first iPhone project. He recently took to Twitter to explain why the brand’s first iPhone did not feature this basic feature. Apparently, the answer to this is quite simple, Apple just didn’t “do it right.”
To elaborate, the team behind the first iPhone did not have the time to do it right before the device started shipping. The former Apple engineer stated that he was busy working on the device’s keyboard, autocorrect, and text functionality. He further added that the after the iPhone launched, the team began to work on a copy and paste function. Notably, Ken Kocienda claimed that the “magnifying text loupe,” which zoomed in on the highlighted text was also his idea.
Apart from this, Kocienda also shared that the text system was entirely powered by WebKit. He said that “About the text system, all editable styled text on the original iPhone was backed by WebKit. he system had itty bitty web pages sprinkled here and there. Every multiline UITextView was its own web page.”
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