Original iPhone Didn't Have Copy-Paste Feature: Ex-Apple Engineer Finally Reveals The Reason

When Apple, Inc. AAPL launched the iPhone in 2007, it did not have a key text functionality. We finally know why.

What Happened: Former Apple engineer Ken Kocienda said in a tweet on Sunday that his team decided to give the cut-copy-paste functionality a miss in the first iPhone. 

The reason? Lack of time, apparently. 

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

Kocienda, who calls himself the inventor of iPhone Autocorrect in his Twitter bio, said, "I had too much keyboard, autocorrection and text system work to do."

See Also: This Apple Accessory Is Set To See Volume Growth Of 75%; Analyst Says Cupertino Could Develop Second-Gen Version 

Kocienda said he worked along with the design team to implement the cut-copy-paste function in the next version, adding that the "magnifying text loupe" — which zooms in on the text over a finger press — was his idea.

"The goal was to have your finger right on the spot where the insertion point should go, while letting you see where that was."

Kocienda also noted that all editable styled text on the original iPhone was backed by WebKit.

Price Action: Apple closed Friday's session up 1.15% at $131.56, according to  Benzinga Pro data.

Read Next: Apple's Next Product Line: It's Pricey, Bigger Than The iPhone And A Quarter Century In The Making