4 ms·

I really hope we don’t start getting into a parade of dialogs going “X app requests permission to use Y”. I get why it’s important from a privacy-perspective,

I really hope we don’t start getting into a parade of dialogs going “X app requests permission to use Y”. I get why it’s important from a privacy-perspective, but most people aren’t going to care. They’ll just mash the “Allow” button until they get what they want.

ThePowerOfFuet 7y ago
And that's fine — but it still empowers people who do care.
_bxg1 7y ago
I don't see why this even needs a dialog. What legitimate reason is there for an app to see my clipboard without me pasting anything?
- acwan93 7y ago
  Exactly. Obscuring the pasteboard or something along those lines is unfortunately the solution.
- shoyer 7y ago
  Google Maps does this (at least on iOS), and it's actually pretty convenient. As soon as I click on the search bar, I can immediately click on my copied text to go there without doing the "tap and hold" dance.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    Maybe the iOS keyboard itself needs a "just tap" paste button? That would seem generally-useful.
    - hutattedonmyarm 7y ago
      That exists on iPadOS, but not on iOS. It's a lot less useful for anything which doesn't require a keyboard though, for example "long tap to paste an image/custom app object"
- jws 7y ago
  The app might be implementing the paste function. The most common use case of copying and pasting text could probably be hidden inside the standard text fields, but consider images, sounds, or custom data types. The app needs to grab these off the clipboard and do something with them and will be triggering the action from some custom user interface element. Even for text, a terminal emulator or word processor is not going to be using a standard text field as the target. Most apps could probably live happily with there being an entitlement for ‘unsecured clipboard access’ to enable anything but text into a text field.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    The OS could provide a dedicated button of its own for pasting images, etc. It could be recognizable and standard and apps could embed it as needed. The key is that apps shouldn't have silent, arbitrary clipboard access. The user should have to do an action for the clipboard's contents to be transferred. The only way to prevent abuse is for a system-provided widget to be the one making the actual API call. Another option would be to provide apps an API call that opens a system "paste dialog", asking the user, "Paste X into this app?". This would have the added bonus of giving the user a preview of what they have in their clipboard before actually performing the paste. It could even show a history of the last several copied items in case they want to paste one of those instead, which would be a genuine productivity-booster.
  - m463 7y ago
    Apple could require the paste dialog before the clipboard was accessed. Complicated buffer access would require an "allow" dialog. I am probably oversimplifying things.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    The app doesn't need to grab anything until the users selects paste. The added latency would be miniscule.
- bobbylarrybobby 7y ago
  1. Upon opening, app for service XYZ sees your clipboard has the URL www.xyz.com/whatever and offers to navigate to that link within the app, saving the user from having to find it again in the app or paste the URL in the search bar (if there is a search bar). 2. When using 2FA, 1Password will automatically write your one time code to the clipboard so it can easily be pasted. As a convenience, after 45 seconds or so it restores your previous clipboard contents for you. To do this it has to be able to read them. 3. An OCR app has a "OCR from clipboard" button to extract text from the image currently in the clipboard.
  - surround 7y ago
    - Writing to the clipboard is not the same as reading it. - Apps can and should let the user paste it themselves. (Examples #1 and #3 offer only slight convenience at the cost of user privacy and security.)
- kccqzy 7y ago
  I guess what if the app needs to implement an "enhanced" paste that's different from the system default paste functionality? I believe the photo picker has had a similar evolution. In the early days of iPhone OS apps used the system-default photo picker, and nowadays it's for apps to use that in favor of reimplementing.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Which is unfortunate, because the latter requires full access to photos.
- eknkc 7y ago
  There are obviously clipboard managers that watch the clipboard changes and save a history (I can't live without one) Some apps do little UX tricks like a parcel tracker app that I have would prompt saving a new parcel if it detects a tracking number in the clipboard. Same as the last one; one of my banking apps detect IBAN numbers in clipboard, offer to initiate a wire directly.
- hutattedonmyarm 7y ago
  Convenience. Apollo for iOS (a reddit client) pops a "Open reddit link?" if you have a reddit url on your pasteboard. There are obviously other ways to solve this (e.g. allow pasting them into the navigation bar) but they're ever so slightly less convenient. IMHO it ultimately depends on the app / the developer. As for Apollo I trust the dev enough to not abuse it and only checking for reddit url to potentially navigate to. Others, e.g. TikTok, I wouldn't

ThePowerOfFuet 7y ago

And that's fine — but it still empowers people who do care.

_bxg1 7y ago

I don't see why this even needs a dialog. What legitimate reason is there for an app to see my clipboard without me pasting anything?

acwan93 7y ago
Exactly. Obscuring the pasteboard or something along those lines is unfortunately the solution.
shoyer 7y ago
Google Maps does this (at least on iOS), and it's actually pretty convenient. As soon as I click on the search bar, I can immediately click on my copied text to go there without doing the "tap and hold" dance.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Maybe the iOS keyboard itself needs a "just tap" paste button? That would seem generally-useful.
  - hutattedonmyarm 7y ago
    That exists on iPadOS, but not on iOS. It's a lot less useful for anything which doesn't require a keyboard though, for example "long tap to paste an image/custom app object"
jws 7y ago
The app might be implementing the paste function. The most common use case of copying and pasting text could probably be hidden inside the standard text fields, but consider images, sounds, or custom data types. The app needs to grab these off the clipboard and do something with them and will be triggering the action from some custom user interface element. Even for text, a terminal emulator or word processor is not going to be using a standard text field as the target. Most apps could probably live happily with there being an entitlement for ‘unsecured clipboard access’ to enable anything but text into a text field.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  The OS could provide a dedicated button of its own for pasting images, etc. It could be recognizable and standard and apps could embed it as needed. The key is that apps shouldn't have silent, arbitrary clipboard access. The user should have to do an action for the clipboard's contents to be transferred. The only way to prevent abuse is for a system-provided widget to be the one making the actual API call. Another option would be to provide apps an API call that opens a system "paste dialog", asking the user, "Paste X into this app?". This would have the added bonus of giving the user a preview of what they have in their clipboard before actually performing the paste. It could even show a history of the last several copied items in case they want to paste one of those instead, which would be a genuine productivity-booster.
- m463 7y ago
  Apple could require the paste dialog before the clipboard was accessed. Complicated buffer access would require an "allow" dialog. I am probably oversimplifying things.
- mirimir 7y ago
  The app doesn't need to grab anything until the users selects paste. The added latency would be miniscule.
bobbylarrybobby 7y ago
1. Upon opening, app for service XYZ sees your clipboard has the URL www.xyz.com/whatever and offers to navigate to that link within the app, saving the user from having to find it again in the app or paste the URL in the search bar (if there is a search bar). 2. When using 2FA, 1Password will automatically write your one time code to the clipboard so it can easily be pasted. As a convenience, after 45 seconds or so it restores your previous clipboard contents for you. To do this it has to be able to read them. 3. An OCR app has a "OCR from clipboard" button to extract text from the image currently in the clipboard.
- surround 7y ago
  - Writing to the clipboard is not the same as reading it. - Apps can and should let the user paste it themselves. (Examples #1 and #3 offer only slight convenience at the cost of user privacy and security.)
kccqzy 7y ago
I guess what if the app needs to implement an "enhanced" paste that's different from the system default paste functionality? I believe the photo picker has had a similar evolution. In the early days of iPhone OS apps used the system-default photo picker, and nowadays it's for apps to use that in favor of reimplementing.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Which is unfortunate, because the latter requires full access to photos.
eknkc 7y ago
There are obviously clipboard managers that watch the clipboard changes and save a history (I can't live without one) Some apps do little UX tricks like a parcel tracker app that I have would prompt saving a new parcel if it detects a tracking number in the clipboard. Same as the last one; one of my banking apps detect IBAN numbers in clipboard, offer to initiate a wire directly.
hutattedonmyarm 7y ago
Convenience. Apollo for iOS (a reddit client) pops a "Open reddit link?" if you have a reddit url on your pasteboard. There are obviously other ways to solve this (e.g. allow pasting them into the navigation bar) but they're ever so slightly less convenient. IMHO it ultimately depends on the app / the developer. As for Apollo I trust the dev enough to not abuse it and only checking for reddit url to potentially navigate to. Others, e.g. TikTok, I wouldn't