How To: Copy & Paste on the BlackBerry Storm
Thanks to the windfall of Storm documents obtained yesterday, the often asked question about how copy and paste works on the Storm can finally be answered. All you’ll need to do is put one finger at the beginning, and another finger at the end of the area you want to copy. Slide those two fingers together and you have yourself a highlight. Then go Menu, Copy, and you’re good to paste. If you’re worried about your bad hand-eye coordination, fear not, because hitting the Escape key deletes the highlight. Simple, brilliant, and effective. Maybe the boys of Cupertino should take a field trip to Waterloo.
UPDATE: As some of our readers pointed out, you actually use two fingers simultaneously on the screen with starting and ending points to select text to copy.
Man that shits gonna be tight!
This will be nice if one can adjust to a section larger than one screen. So, you start by selecting with two fingers and then drag the start or stop place holders to where you want to go. Otherwise, you can’t capture something larger than a screen.
BGR You’re a beast this weekend! I’m loving it more and more…Copy and paste baby…something that everyone needs.
Looks like the Storm supports multi-touch
hmmmm, makes you wonder why those dumb fucks at Apple couldn’t come up with a simple solution like this.
The Storm is really looking good that is for sure. My only concern is on how accurate the keyboard is going to be for composing text.
Nice. Cant wait till november
Michael – I think you may have misinterpreted the technique used to highlight the text.
What it’s say is that you simultaneously place one finger at the beginning of the text you want to copy and one finger at the end of the text you want to copy. This will highlight the selection. You can remove your fingers at this point.
If the selection isn’t exactly what you want you can touch at the beginning of the highlight and slide the highlight to where you want. Likewise for the end of the highlight.
Then there are two ways to copy. First way: “click” (as in touch the screen and press) in the middle of the highlight. This brings up a menu box with the copy command. Alternatively you can press the physical menu button and select copy.
I think if you use your “slide” technique you’ll end up erasing the highlight (by sliding both the beginning and ending highlight to the middle of the highlighted text).
BigVDawgy thanks for noticing the multitouch aspect of this function. That is one big addition that many thought would not be supported on this phone. Another advantage it has taken from the iPhone I guess.
BG can you number the comments so we can reference them without having to remember specific names…It is so easy to respond on other blogs that way so please implement that here as well.
What a clunky, horrible way to cut and paste on the Storm!
Two thumbs or fingers simultaneously? How does that work with paragraphs longer than the thin ribbon of text window the Storm allows above its bizarre touchscreen keypad?
This is NOT multi-touch in the iPhone sense, which is applied mostly to resizing photos and other items, which of course the Storm cannot do. So save the vitriol. The touchscreen interface of the iPhone is vastly superior.
Furthermore, while cut-and-paste doesn’t yet cut across multiple apps on the iPhone yet, I’ve been enjoying it for weeks on my notes program, Text Guru, which has very simple, intuitive touch-and-swipe interface. The Storm’s version requires two hands or two fingers pressing hard on its clicky-squishy-bizarro screen.
Most important, neither the Storm nor the iPhone come close to the ease-of-use with cut-and-paste on all the other BlackBerry phones. An advantage that RIM gives up with this foolish attempt to mimic the iPhone and hurt its own brand in the process. Along with no WiFi for the Storm! What’s with that? For a device that supposedly makes Web viewing better?
So, please, all you apologists out there, keep dumping on my iPhone that gives me 3G, WiFi, GPS, iTunes, App Store and the Internet in my pocket. You can have MMS, video recording and cut-and-paste–for now.
Because you don’t have 3G — and may never with the way things with Bold are going.
Because you don’t have WiFi — not with the Storm.
Because BoyGenius reports what analysts have known all along about the Pearl Flip: it sucks the big one.
Not ONE of the new BlackBerries delivers everything I already get on my iPhone. Which is why I switched.
Sad thing is that BlackBerry COULD deliver all these things if they didn’t show such contempt for us customers.
Or in my case, former customer.
As I’ve said before, RIM put a lot of time and effort into this device. Believe it or not, want to or not, the Storm will revolutionize they way we think of touchscreen device from now on.
anyone know how to do this on my iphone?
i am really liking this device
anyone know how to do this on my iphone?
- sammy sosa
Yes, take out a pen & paper. Write down what you want to copy. Now the paste… go to the app you would like to paste into. Then retype what you wrote down on the paper.
Its just that simple. Who needs all that highlighting & copying with a touch of a finger?
By the way, I think Michael got his interpretation of the motions a little wrong. Read the actual BB photo & you will see you dont have to slide your fingers together. You only slide your fingers to adjust the highlight. Either way, it looks like a great way to accomplish this necessary base smart phone feature… taking notes Apple?
God damnit apple, make this shit happen already
This is a HORRIBLE way to copy and paste. I hope to hell that when Apple finally gets off their ass and puts copy and paste in the OS, it is better thought out than this.
First of all, you have to use two fingers. That’s fine when you are zooming in and out on a picture where it doesn’t matter where you pinch. But when you have to have the begin and end in exact locations between letters, this is very inconvenient to have to use two fingers in such a small amount of space.
My bigger issue though is that by requiring two fingers to mark the beginning and end of the highlighted text and pinching, this means that you can only select text that fits on one screen at a time.
No problem if you only want to copy one word or sentence at a time. But what if you want to copy two paragraphs in a email. If both paragraphs don’t fit on the screen at once, there is no way to mark the beginning and the end at the same time and pinch.
If someone is going to invent a good way to copy and paste on a touch screen device (without using a stylus like on WM), they need to focus on one hand use and have the ability to scroll.
Text Guru has addressed both of these on the iphone, and I hope Apple copies their idea, or comes up with an even better way. But this method licks.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s better than nothing. But if this was my only option, I’m willing to wait longer for a better designed method.
it is obvious that blackberry users love finger gymnastics. Seriously you boy geniuses, has anyone of you used an iPhone to know what multitouch is? Hints: it is not about touching a pressure-sensitive screen with two or more fingers.
I look forward to the day apple will add copy and paste for those 5 times a year I need it, but it ain’t easy when they have to think of conflict with existing multitouch gestures as well as of any future ones they maybe planning. .
Blackberry Ex I take it TextGuru came with your iPhone, correct? I love you dumb and feeble minded some individuals are in thinking that because someone else took it upon themselves to make a program for the iPhone that was not natively offered then, problem solved. First of all, the problem is not solved because most of the good programs offered for the iPhone, like TextGuru, you have to pay for it. Why the hell are you paying just to have a simple feature like cut, copy and paste?? And you are so dumb to think that it is ok that they are making you pay for it. Second Apple chose multitouch over copy and paste and that is why they are scrambling to figure out how to fix that issue now. They should’ve been figured it out already since the iphone is like in its second stage. Blackberry was smart and did it the first time, give them credit and stop hating. You’re just mad that Apple doesnt care enough to give their users that option.
Shane: you can select more than what is available on screen so I suggest you read before you start typing away like a person with no sense. If says whatever you highlighted can be increased or shrunk by dragging your finger at the end of the highlight or beginning to the desired location. Thus if you have selected the entire page, you can just drag further down on the highlight until you want to end. Second, you can do copy and paste on Windows Mobile without a stylus…I do it with my finger all the time so stop talking nonsense you have no clue about.
Again, someone just peeved that they have an iphone that can’t do shit that phones like WinMo, Blackberry and even Palm has offered since the beginning of time. When you and BlackberryEx get tired of wasting your money on everyday features then come back and say something useful. good job RIM!
Terrible way to copy and paste — why not be able to hold the phone in one hand and simply slide one finger over the text u want to highlight and then select Copy by depressing the highlighted text or by going into a set of menus?
Blackberry Ex you are an idiot who knows nothing about technology who just reads and believes everything obviously.
1. At&t’s 3g on the iphone sucks
2. Verizon is a 3g network duhhh!!!
3. The blackberry app store is already leaked.
4. Storm has gps. voice included unlock the iphone.
5. full html internet browser.
6. has mms, cut-paste, and video recorder
7. media with rhapsody included.
8. higher screen resolution
hmmmm. All the things the iphone has other than wifi (which no one is dying for because the majority of the time you are using your wireless device will be outside a wifi hotspot and soon we’ll have 4g) and add on the three things the iphone doesn’t have which is once again mms, cut-paste, and video recording and i think you might have yourself a better device than the iphone. Learn the facts kid.
i am tired of my iphone which has been a huge letdown/plagued with issues
i will be a first time bb user and can’t wait for storm
@ Shane: An iPhone user, having the gall to knock the copy and paste function? Are you SERIOUS? Lemme just say Storm users can expect multiple intuitive ways to copy and paste, and yes, you can select text that spans more than a page using a single finger with just hover/select, press, drag, and lift.
Gene, Verizon is NOT a GSM network, they do not have 3G service.
It’s so nice to be able to ” copy and paste” on a phone that doesn’t exist!
Verizon uses EV-DO Rev. A, which is a 3G network with speeds comparable to HSDPA, which is AT&T’s network. Unlike AT&T however, it is Nationwide, where AT&T’s network is just in some cities.
I have been a Verizon customer for 10 years. I was taken by the iPhone and some of the unique features it offered when it was introduced and seriously thought about changing for the sake of a phone. Before I made that commitment, I bought an iPod Touch to make sure that it lived up to its promise. Although there were some features that I liked, I can say with experience, that I LOVE typing on the Blackberry Storm. The click screen or whatever it’s called is great.
While I was waiting in line at my local Apple store for an HOUR to get my MacBook fixed, I played around more thoroughly with one of the iPhones they had on display. Although the interface was amusing and easy to use, the typing was challenging. It was far too easy to select the wrong letters, and when I was touching the correct letters it kept changing the word for whatever word it thought would work better. It was quite frustrating.
I have now had my Storm for several days, post firmware update. It works as advertised and I love it. I have composed some pretty lengthy emails and texts using it and it has posed no problems for me or attempted to change my wording. It’s fast on the EVDO rev. A network, I just did a really long cut and paste and yes, it was really really simple, and even the media functions are pretty good.
As for my iPod Touch, it is now living with my ex who got it as an extra special extra expensive birthday present.
I have been able to use copy & paste in order to use vlingo to edit an existing text file !
At times, I find implementation on different sites to be tedious to impossible. Today I received a very short email including a longish string to flickr in y! (yahoo mail). On my PC with Firefox, this string was not recognized as a link, so I had to copy it and paste it into a second instance of Firefox, which is normal and OK.
On my Storm, I spent a 1/2 hour do this. As I mentioned, the ratio of this string to the total email was quite small, being mostly TO and FROM links. I finally got it and moved it to MemoPad where I edited it before pasting it into my Storm Browser. Really, really tedious !
In my view, many sites seem to try to get you to go where THEY want you to go by weighting different links differently. In the case above, it seemed to me that the small text string had a nearly zero weight for the copy process.