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Remember the second mouse button that Apple didn’t have for roughly 15 years. OS X supported the right mouse click and perhaps even OS 9 supported it, but Apple refused to release such a piece of hardware. A fact for which Logitech and Microsoft were no doubt grateful.

When they did release the right mouse button, it was not actually a button, the right side of the mouse just worked like a right mouse button. Even today, the right mouse button is a special feature for Mac desktops and is still not supported on Macbook touch pads. Apple still wants you to use the keyboard shortcut for the context menus.

Cut, copy and paste is the right mouse click of the iPhone world. A feature that is so high in demand that it made CNET’s top predictions for 2009. Type “Copy and Paste iPhone” into Google and you come up with nothing but rants and rumors for dozens of pages. Everyone wants copy and paste for the iPhone.

Many sources for Mac rumors are predicting that copy and paste is coming to the iPhone with the new 3.0 update. That’s right, Apple waited 3 generations to release the biggest complaint about their most popular device.

Like the right mouse button, when it is announced everyone will go crazy. They will say stuff like, “It’s about time!” Then they will send out press releases, blogs and tweets about how revolutionary Apple is to address their users concerns.

One last prediction – copy and paste will most likely work differently than it does on any other device. In order to address the concern they will need to make it work differently as to create the illusion that the delay was due to difficult development – not to sell more devices or an update later. I would also not be surprised if the 3.0 update did not work on first generation models. I expect it to, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this was the case.

Apple May Give iPhone 3.0 Cut And Paste — IPhone — InformationWeek.