Copy-and-Paste Coming to the iPhone, at Last

It's been a missing, yet highly called-for feature on the iPhone since it's launch: copy-and-paste. But despite its appearance in surveys done by Apple over possible new features, it's still missing from the OS. Now a company called Pastebud appears ready to unveil a limited version, which doesn't require any software installation.

It works only through Mail and Safari, but the company is probably right when it calls those the most used iPhone apps (except, one would think, the phone app). How do they do it? The company says that it:

gets around Apple's onerous App Store terms through a clever combination of javascript bookmarks and web services.

Pastebud's site isn't ready for launch yet, but if you try to access it, it gives the tantalizing message:

The site says: "Launching on Friday, follow @pastebud for details."

Yes, we know, we've been teased before. But this looks like it will launch. Doesn't look like it will be free, however. A message seen during a video demo at Gizmodo says:

"Thanks for trying pastebud! Upgrade now to make it even more convenient, for just $5."

For an iPhone product, $5 would be pretty pricey (compared to the sheer number of free and $0.99 apps, that is). The question might be: how long before Apple releases a full-blown copy-and-paste on the iPhone, thus rendering your $5 wasted money? If it's quite some time, it'll be worth it. If not ...