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The purpose of my application is to extend the functionality of the UIPasteboard across all applications on the iPhone. So if you are composing a text message, you could doubletap and access the extended UIPasteboard functionality. The same goes for email, Twitter, or any other occasion where a text field is present.

I don't really need an example or explanation of how to extend the UIPasteboard, I can figure that part out. The part I'm unsure of is creating a background application that can intercept events from other applications. I've never built one that was meant to sit around until someone performed a certain action in another application.

Any ideas or pointers? Thanks!

DotNetDude
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  • Its not possible. You can't intercept other apps. If anything, you can define a custom url scheme that allows other apps to integrate with yours. To add, your app is frozen when being sent to the background. You can ask the OS for some time (limited) to finish some tasks for a while when being sent to the background but after that you are in a limbo. Only certain types of tasks are allowed to stick around in a limited capacity but the app you are describing isn't possible. – Deepak Danduprolu May 24 '11 at 16:46
  • Look at how [PasteBot](http://tapbots.com/software/pastebot/) works to get an idea of what is or is not possible with respect to the pasteboard on iOS. – titaniumdecoy May 24 '11 at 18:20
  • Thanks for the detailed responses, gentlemen! I was afraid that was going to be my answer, but I thought I'd try anyway. I'm going to snag PasteBot to try out some of the functionality they've achieved and see if I can mimic, on a slightly smaller scale, the parts that match my requirements. Thanks again! – DotNetDude May 24 '11 at 18:32

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Not possible on a non-jailbroken device, I'm afraid. iOS apps are tightly sandboxed, for security and UX reasons—third-party software doesn’t get to mess with system-wide functionality.

Noah Witherspoon
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