Copied has recently become one of my favourite apps for iOS and OS X. It is a slick and useful clipboard manager that makes cut/copy and paste on iPhone,iPad and Mac much more useful and when combined with multiple devices introduces a new capability that was previously only possible by emailing or Messaging between devices. That feature is the ability to copy something on one device then jump over to another and paste that data on another device !
The iOS version has a free to use version that allows you to save up to 10 entries into the clipboard and to recall any of these to paste into another app. The entries can be free text, images and links and importantly can be edited after being captured into the clipboard.
In Use on iOS
Pasting an existing entry from the clipboard can be done in a number of ways. Firstly you can load the app and scroll through the list of entries to find the one you want. Once located tap on the entry and it opens in an editor where ( if the entry is text ) you can edit the contents of the clipboard if required. From here you also have a standard iOS Share button which allows you to send the entry to a suitable app as a new item ( document/tweet/Message etc ).
Alternatively you can click on the three dots icon to either copy the entry into the current clipboard ( so you can paste it into another app/document ), Share using a template or Transform the text if applicable. Transforming text gives options to convert to upper/lower/title case, removing whitespace etc.
Copied Keyboard
The other method for accessing clipboard entries is through the Copied keyboard. This is accessed in the same way as other third party iOS keyboards by tapping the globe key on the standard keyboard to cycle through any additional keyboards you have installed. The keyboard replaces the normal keys with a grid of clipboard entries which you can scroll through ( sideways ) to find the entry you wish to paste into your document or text. Just tap the entry to paste the data at the cursor. Simple.
Copied+
For a small in-app purchase ( £1.49 in UK ) the basic free version can be upgraded to Copied+ which increases the clipboard size to 1,000 items and also includes the ability to organise clippings into Lists for better organisation. For example I have is a list of clippings for my address, mobile phone number etc which I can then use to quickly enter these into web forms. Copied+ also enables iCloud sync of the clipboard between devices as mentioned at the beginning of this review.
Copied for Mac
The synchronisation doesn’t end with iOS though, when used in conjunction with the OS X version of the app data can be easily transferred between Mac and iPhone/iPad in just the same way. This is an incredibly useful feature and one that would really fit into the core operating system on these devices if Apple ever saw fit to develop this, however for now Copied fills this space very nicely. It should be said that the OS X version of the app is £5.99 which isn’t free and there are other apps that provide similar features, but in my experience using Copied is a smooth and effective way of improving the way in which I can transfer data between apps on my iPhone and also between iPhone and Mac and I believe the overall benefit is worth the small outlay.