Apple Mac HQ

Transferring text and images between my iPhone and Mac has been a pain in the past. I have tried a combination of ways to get this done, including Simplenote, Dropbox, and e-mailing to myself. In this App Showdown, I will compare 2 clipboard iPhone apps, Syncopy and Pastebot, to figure out a better way to get this done.

Syncopy is from the Australian development company Syncode. Upon opening this app, the most recently copied text is shown. After choosing to upload the text to the Syncopy server, the Mac companion toolbar app receives the copied text automatically or by manually refreshing it and then copies it to your Mac clipboard. Syncing is usually quick. The iPhone app has a history section which shows all synced text when the companion app is open. There is no way to batch delete the history for the iPhone and Mac companion app unfortunately. They must be deleted individually. Previous copied text is shown in the companion app, but it only shows the past 7. Both versions show where the text came from (iPhone or Mac).

Pastebot, by Tapbots, works under the same premise as Syncopy. The most recently copied item in the clipboard appears and is automatically added to the history. iPhone images can be from the clipboard, camera, or photo library. Unlike Syncopy, Pastebot can handle both text and images. Pastebot’s Mac companion toolbar app does not show a history of synced items, nor are copied items automatically pushed to the Mac. Instead, the item is selected on the iPhone and then is chosen to be pasted on the Mac. It will then paste into whatever app is open (assuming it can accept a pasted item at the time). Copied text from the Mac will show up in Pastebot whenever both the iPhone and companion app are open.

Pastebot is a very pretty app, especially compared to Syncopy. It is just as beautiful as Weightbot and Convertbot, also made by Tapbots.

The history in Pastebot is far more functional because of folders, unlike Syncopy’s flat organization which only sorts in reverse chronological order based on when it was added to the history. Pastebot does not do batch delete as well.

The Pastebot Mac companion app and iPhone must be on the same network to work together. Syncopy syncs via the cloud, so this is not an issue.

Pastebot provides text filters and editing. The filters are very useful and include changing the case, find and replace, and encoding and decoding HTML entities. Image filters and cropping is also available. The image filtering is rather basic and includes altering brightness, saturation, and sepia. Syncopy does not offer any type of altering.

Outputted text from Pastebot can be used as a Google search query via Mobile Safari or e-mailed in app. Images can also be e-mailed, as well as saved to the iPhone’s Camera Roll. Syncopy cannot output in any of these ways. Both iPhone apps cannot send to a Twitter client like Birdhouse.

Pastebot wins this App Showdown. Though I do have some nitpicks with both apps, Pastebot has more features then Syncopy. Syncopy feels too barebones at this point to be recommended. Pastebot 1.0.5 (iTunes link) is available now for $2.99 for iPhone OS 3.0 and above, while Syncopy 1.0 (iTunes link) is available for iPhone OS 3.1.2 and above.

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