Pastefire, Desktop to iPhone Pasteboard Utility, Adds a Mac Client
Pastefire is a handy little utility that lets you paste things quickly from your desktop to iPhone, but with some added magic. The magic is that Pastefire takes what you’re pasting and makes intelligent choices about what to do with it, saving you several taps and steps. For instance, if you paste @justiphoneblog it doesn’t just paste the text across to your iPhone – it also fires up Tweetie or Twitterrific for you, because it recognizes the text as a Twitter ID.
Or if you paste a URL, it opens it straight away in Safari. An email address opens in the Mail app, and so on.
This week Pastefire has released a Mac client – so pasting from a Mac desktop is even simpler.
The Mac client installs as a service. It lets you use keyboard shortcuts to send selected text straight across to the iPhone. So now I can just highlight an email address, hit Shift-Command-U (my chosen shortcut) and have it immediately popup an alert on my iPhone. When I tap View on that alert, it fires up a new email in the Mail app with that pasted text in the recipient field. Pastefire does not need to be open for this to work either – it uses push alerts to cover that side of things.
Here are some of Pastefire’s keyfeatures, as per its App Store description:
- 1 click auto-mode actions include: phone number autodial, URL opening, transfer to iPhone clipboard
- smart URL, email address and phone number recognition
- common actions include: open in safari, SMS to or with content, Email to and with content, search on Google or Wikipedia
- call to skypeout (on wifi when active)
- Send to Twitter (Tweetie & Twitterriffic autodiscovered if installed)
I’m finding Pastefire very useful now that it can do things for me via just a simple keyboard shortcut, very glad to see it add this Mac client.
You can find Pastefire in the App Store now, and it’s a free app. The Mac client is also free and can be downloaded from here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pastefireclient/
*** Please Note: The Mac client requires Snow Leopard.
Forgive my ignorance, but how does it know what I want to do with copied text? For example, say I copy an e-mail address, I may want to text that to someone, add it to a contact, or e-mail that person immediately. If this always defaults with mail, its actually more steps for me because then I have to cancel the message, close mail, open SMS, paste, and finally send.
Hi John. Most of the time, the auto-action just works. URLs go to Safari and similar. With the example of an email address and wanting to do an SMS instead, you'd just hit Cancel on the new email it opens for you. That takes you into Pastefire itself, with the email addy still on the clipboard, and another button to open SMS and paste in the name. Less than ideal on this one for now I guess.
Hi, John
I have really enjoyed using Pastefire, however, I don't leave automated actions turned on (you can toggle this on or off under settings (the small gear in the upper corner of the app screen when you launch it)). I realize turning this off kills some of the cool factor but I find it works as needed for me, and I don't have to cancel out of something that launched unintended by doing it this way. You might at least give it a try with the automated function off and see if it's useful then…
Oh, and PatrickJ, I came in excited to see there was now a Mac desktop version, but it seems to be Leopard only, and I haven't upgraded. So. Phooey. ;D But I still love Pastefire, it's been a timesaver for me! Thanks for your article!
Just updated the post to reflect the Snow Leopard requirement. Why haven't you upgraded, just out of curiosity?
Well, no special reason really except that I haven't… The cost was great, I expect the changes it brings are helpful, but I live on a fixed income and can't always afford the cutting edge. I do keep up with all things Mac though and I understand another large OS upgrade is coming soon (?) so I will definitely be on that if possible. I splurged on an iPhone 3g just "moments" before the 3gs came out so I'm hanging in and waiting on the next OS leap. This time!
Makes sense. Changes in it are not earth shattering IMHO.
Hey Patrick – check out http://www.myphonedesktop.com/ – a new kid on the block – much richer in functionality and multiple OS support with Web client and Bookmarklet