But then smartphones came along. These devices are so smart, you really want to do everything with them. And here is a trivial problem which was created – how do I copy and paste a piece of text, a link or an image from my desktop to my phone, or vise versa?
Many people use e-mail for that. It’s fairly quick and easy, but creates clutter in your mailbox. You can also use an app such as Evernote or Pastebot, but the latter is not available for Windows, and both require that you download an app. So is there no other way to accomplish such a trivial task? Well, I believe I found one!
Hopper
Hopper is a web app which lets you easily copy and paste something on your desktop or phone, and immediately access it on the other device as well. There’s no native app to download; there’s just the regular web version and the iOS-optimized version (no Android yet, unfortunately).
You can access Hopper from your desktop or iOS device by pointing your browser to gethopper.com. You don’t need an account to paste stuff in, but you will obviously need to sign up if you want your stuff to sync between devices.
Hopper On Your Computer
To start using Hopper, access the website and create an account. You can log in using Facebook or Twitter, or simply create a unique Hopper account. You will now see your Hopper board to which you can add items by pasting from your clipboard, dragging from anywhere on your computer (Firefox and Chrome only), or by using the Hopper bookmarklet.
To use the bookmarklet, drag it to your browser’s bookmarks toolbar, and then use it to save whole webpages from your browser to Hopper. You can easily add images, text, links, files, and webpages. Anything you add, will instantly be available on your iOS device. Just like that. Each item also gets its own link which you can use for sharing if you wish. To copy the link, all you have to do it click it. It will automatically be copied to your clipboard.
You can also add annotations to each item. Click the edit icon on the right and give your item a name or a description. These will help you remember what is what after adding many items. You can also search through your items by keyword, date and filetype.
When you click the edit icon, you will also get a delete button. The “Make Private/Shorten Link” button toggles between a very short URL which you can see in the screenshot, and a longer URL which you can see in the screenshots above.
The interface is very simple, and it’s really easy to add and delete things. It’s so nice, in fact, that I’m half tempted to simply use it to keep things I want to remember. But let’s get to the real point – accessing all of this on your iOS device.
Hopper On Your iOS Device
The iOS interface is very much like what you’ve just seen, with a few adjustments made for touch interface. To see everything you’ve saved, go to gethopper.com on your device’s browser. First thing you’d have to do is sign in, so you can view all the items you’ve added.
After signing in, all your items will appear, just the way you’ve added them. You can browse through all of them, and of course, add new ones.
Let’s say you’re out and about and find a piece of text you really need to have on your desktop. To add a new item, tap the grey area above you items, and paste your new item into it (or type it in). You can even use it for note taking, typing straight into Hopper’s interface. Your new item will immediately be synced. No need to refresh.
As on the regular web version, you can add annotations, get a link and delete items. To add annotation, slide your finger on an item from left to right. The item will flip over, allowing you to type in your annotation. To access the other editing options, slide your finger on an item from right to left. This will reveal the delete button and the link.
For some reason, the “Touch & hold to copy link” button worked on and off for me. Not sure if this is a problem with the app’s interface or with my iPad. In any case, when it did work, it gave me several options for things I can do with my link, including adding it to my reading list.
Here, too, you can search through your items. When you conduct a search, the results will display the annotation side of your items, no the items themselves. If you haven’t added annotations to all your items, this may look a bit weird. For this reason, it’s recommended to add annotations to all your items, but you can always flip them over to the right side and see what they are.
Hopper is a fairly new product, and it’s by no means perfect yet. The mobile version still requires some work,but it definitely gets the job done. All in all, Hopper solves quite a burning problem, and does so in a slick and easy-to-use way, which will help you de-clutter both your device and your inbox.
What do you think of Hopper? Do you have a better way to copy and paste between computer and iPhone? Share in the comments!
No comments:
Post a Comment
[Please do not advertise, or post irrelevant links. Thank you for your cooperation.]