While iOS 16 has a number of compelling new features, as is typically the case with an operating system update, there are some annoying bugs as well. Apple has officially acknowledged one irritating issue causing prompts for users trying to copy and paste content across apps.
In an email shared with MacRumors, Apple Senior manager Ron Huang, stated that the permission prompts being triggered when attempting to copy and paste are "absolutely not expected behavior," and that Apple "will get to the bottom of it."
What exactly is the problem?
While it may not be behaving as intended, this is truly a case where this is a feature not a bug. Apple implemented this system in order to protect potentially sensitive data that a user might have on their clipboard. This means a prompt is generated when an app tries to access content on the clipboard that came from another app.
According to Huang, no one at Apple ran into this issue, but following the general release of iOS 16, others have complained about the constant prompts.
When can you expect a fix?
Huang didn't offer a timeline for the fix, which isn't surprising as it seems clear based on the response that Apple wasn't certain, at least at the time of that email, how it would go about solving the issue. Huang acknowledged a suggestion that a per-app setting allowing for access, similar to the way that location, camera, microphone, etc., are handled might work. He went on to say that Apple "certainly need to fix and make apps like Mail just work even without this setting...Stay tuned."
Even the most optimistic timeline would be something baked into iOS 16.1, which is already in beta testing. We are likely a couple of weeks out from that release and this may slip to a more minor point release following that. All of this is to say if you do a lot of copying and pasting on your iPhone you may want to go ahead and hold off on that iOS 16 update until this problem is resolved.
On the other hand, there are lots of awesome iOS 16 features that might convince you to update. Including personalized spatial audio on iPhone, the return of battery percentage on iPhone and a cool new iPhone wallpaper depth effect.
