Microsoft Shows Apple How Multitouch Copy-And-Paste Is Done

By

bingipad

Apple famously solved the copy-and-paste touchscreen challenge with their innovative hold-and-drag-corners approach first introduced in iOS 3.0, but is there a better way? Microsoft thinks so. They think they’ve got an even better way to copy text in the latest version of their Bing for iPad app. It’s called the lasso.

Here’s how it works. Instead of just tapping, holding and dragging the corners of a text selection box around the selection you want to copy, you just use your finger to draw a circle around the words you want to make your search term.

That’s it. It’s that easy, and as Bing manager Tony Chou notes, it’s the difference between up to nine steps for Apple’s version to just one, fluid motion.

I love it. Not enough to get me to use Bing, but still. There must be a reason why Apple opted to not use the “just draw a shape around the words you want to highlight” approach to copy-paste, but I can’t for the life of me think of why that is. Anyone out there got any good ideas?

[via the Mac Observer]

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