Apple has responded to user complaints about the annoying pop-up windows in iOS 16. If an app wants to access the clipboard to paste text, images, etc., it needs to ask the user for permission.
A new pop-up prompt was added to iOS 16 as a new privacy measure to protect users by requiring apps to request permission to access the clipboard, which may contain sensitive data. However, the prompt has become an annoyance to users when they install iOS 16, as it constantly requests permission whenever they wish to paste something into the app.
As user dissatisfaction with the behavior mounted, Apple finally responded, saying that the constant pop-ups were not the way the feature was intended to work. Netizen Kieran sent an email to Craig Federighi and Tim Cook complaining about the constantly prompted pop-ups and arguing that Apple treats clipboard access the same way iOS treats third-party App access to location, camera, microphone, etc.
Ron Huang, a senior Apple manager, joined the email discussion, saying pop-ups should not appear every time a user tries to paste. “This is definitely not expected behavior and we will pursue it to the end,” Ron Huang added, noting that this behavior has not been seen internally at Apple, but that many users experience this frequent pop-up behavior.
Responding to the suggestion to “allow each app to set up clipboard access in the app,” Ron Huang said this would make a “nice improvement,” adding that Apple “certainly needs to fix that and make apps like Mail work without frequent pop-ups. and make apps like Mail work properly without frequent requests for permission to set it up, but it’s still helpful for apps that users want to share data with, even if they don’t launch it.” “Stay tuned,” he added.
Ron Huang is listed as one of several inventors of this feature in a patent application for “authenticated interface element interaction” dated 29 January 2021.
Clipboard access errors are one of several features Apple needs to fix in the iOS 16 update, including battery over drain reporting and an issue with iPhone 14 Pro models getting stuck after transferring data from an older iPhone. Right now, Apple is already testing the new iOS 16.1 Beta.
