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Part of me wishes they dropped this feature in a random dot release, to give these developers a well deserved public flogging. Of course, the responsible part

Part of me wishes they dropped this feature in a random dot release, to give these developers a well deserved public flogging. Of course, the responsible part of me knows that’s a bad idea. Sigh.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
tbqh, why would that be a bad idea? It's a minor feature from a technical standpoint.
- gpm 6y ago
  It would annoy their (Apple's) users more than necessary.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    I actually really like how Apple implemented this though. If apps aren't doing something very clearly nefarious, it's not annoying at all.
    - gpm 6y ago
      I mean, hn users aren't exactly normal, and while I'm sure many people like this feature that doesn't mean they want their day to be unnecessarily and repeatedly interrupted when that could have been solved by giving the sites a few days notice.
    - comex 6y ago
      It's not necessarily nefarious though. https://twitter.com/twolivesleft/status/1275776460918157315 https://twitter.com/twolivesleft/status/1275776460918157315
      - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
        Ah, thanks, that's a case I didn't think of. And a pretty good reason to keep this out of a point release!
      - tornato7 6y ago
        Maybe apple should implement some more APIs around clipboard metadata, they could allow queries on content type and length or something without that notification. Or even check the hash of clipboard contents. Anything to protect privacy but still allow useful features.
        comex 6y ago
        In fact, they did. For querying content type, there are pre-existing APIs (e.g. `hasStrings` [1]), which AFAIK don't trigger the banner. In fact, the documentation already recommended using those methods over querying the actual clipboard contents, for performance reasons. But they're relatively new compared to the rest of the UIPasteboard API, having been added in iOS 10. For going beyond content type, there are new APIs in iOS 14 that let you check if the clipboard contents are a "ProbableWebSearch" or "ProbableWebURL" without triggering the banner. [2] Doesn't seem like there's more flexibility beyond those two options, although I found a thread [3] suggesting that more might be added in the future. I wonder what ProbableWebSearch does. [1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uipasteboard https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uipasteboard [2] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uipasteboard/3621870-detectpatternsforpatterns https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uipasteboard... [3] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/649996 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/649996

Part of me wishes they dropped this feature in a random dot release, to give these developers a well deserved public flogging. Of course, the responsible part of me knows that’s a bad idea. Sigh.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

tbqh, why would that be a bad idea? It's a minor feature from a technical standpoint.

gpm 6y ago
It would annoy their (Apple's) users more than necessary.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  I actually really like how Apple implemented this though. If apps aren't doing something very clearly nefarious, it's not annoying at all.
  - gpm 6y ago
    I mean, hn users aren't exactly normal, and while I'm sure many people like this feature that doesn't mean they want their day to be unnecessarily and repeatedly interrupted when that could have been solved by giving the sites a few days notice.
  - comex 6y ago
    It's not necessarily nefarious though. https://twitter.com/twolivesleft/status/1275776460918157315 https://twitter.com/twolivesleft/status/1275776460918157315
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      Ah, thanks, that's a case I didn't think of. And a pretty good reason to keep this out of a point release!
    - tornato7 6y ago
      Maybe apple should implement some more APIs around clipboard metadata, they could allow queries on content type and length or something without that notification. Or even check the hash of clipboard contents. Anything to protect privacy but still allow useful features.
      - comex 6y ago
        In fact, they did. For querying content type, there are pre-existing APIs (e.g. `hasStrings` [1]), which AFAIK don't trigger the banner. In fact, the documentation already recommended using those methods over querying the actual clipboard contents, for performance reasons. But they're relatively new compared to the rest of the UIPasteboard API, having been added in iOS 10. For going beyond content type, there are new APIs in iOS 14 that let you check if the clipboard contents are a "ProbableWebSearch" or "ProbableWebURL" without triggering the banner. [2] Doesn't seem like there's more flexibility beyond those two options, although I found a thread [3] suggesting that more might be added in the future. I wonder what ProbableWebSearch does. [1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uipasteboard https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uipasteboard [2] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uipasteboard/3621870-detectpatternsforpatterns https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uipasteboard... [3] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/649996 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/649996