How are you using Pastebot?
- December 16th, 2009
- 94 Comments
First of all, thanks to everyone who has purchased Pastebot and has said wonderful things about it. We are in complete shock by the reception and are excited to make Pastebot even better. Pastebot is such an open-ended app and there are many ways to use it. We are really curious to know how people have made Pastebot a part of their workflow. I’m sure other users would like some tips as well. So let us know how you are using Pastebot in the comments!
I use it to quickly get photos from my iPhone library to my mac, and to store things I find notable online that I otherwise wouldnât have been able to save without bookmarking (and we all know how unpleasant it is to clean out your old bookmarks).
Pastebot is great for getting things quickly off your phone and on to your mac. I no longer take a photo and email it to myself and then share it with someone. I open Skitch, take a photo within pastebot, and it magically shows up in skitch, which I then upload to a server to share with all :D
I use it for tweets drafts, recurring email templates, iPhone wallpapers and casual notes. A big library basically, like I wrote on my review on MacStories: http://mcstr.es/t/96
I’m curious to see what other users have come up to anyway.
;)
I’m using Pastebot to make it easier to record things I want to blog. I don’t like writing long posts on my iPhone, so I’ll copy a quote from Reeder when I’m on the bus, start Pastebot, then run the Mac utility when I get home to easily get the quote into MarsEdit or whatever app I’m blogging from. Amazingly seamless, this is such a brilliant app.
I would love to use Pastebot but I don’t have a Mac to sync with. It’d be great if you guys could whip up a Windows app to sync with Pastebot. :)
I’m using Pastebot to send texts from the Mac back to the iPhone. Typing with the iPhone in the dock is less than desirable.
I would like to use Pastebot to copy phone numbers I find online to call them… but the text editor does not recognize it as a phone number… the same if I copy an url it does not get recognized… I think this could be a good feature for Pastebot… otherwise it should be easy to add two new filter… “Call number” and “Open url in Safari”
I also use a PC at work so I would like to see a Windows version of the Paste Sync app
@Richard Faulder
How exactly do you do this? By copying the images from photo library and pasting to pastebot? Ok, and then what? I can’t seem to paste the images into finder on my Mac…
I use it mostly to store recurring text lines. I archive them on Pastebot, then when I need it I just select the line and paste it into my mac. It is also useful for saving drafts for Twitter! And I have to say that even works into parallels.
@Gospel9:
Right now pasting an image from your device to the mac works just as expected. It’s not pasting an actual image file, but the image data itself. So you need to paste into a document of an application. To test this, try opening TextEdit (or your rich text editor of choice) and pasting into a document.
I’m really excited for pastebot and use convertbot regularly. However, I’m holding back because I’m waiting for a Windows sync client. Any idea if this is in the works or will come out soon? Thanks!
I use it for saving and cropping designs that I like found on the web. Then I can go back and use said images as an reference for ideas that I might have.
I just copied some flight and other travel information into it from SimpleNote. If you include a way to sync (or at least back up, like in WeightBot) the data, PasteBot could replace simple note-taking apps for many people.
I use Pastebot as a mobile version of my Quicksilver clipboard shelf.
Because my phone is jailbroken, Pastebot always runs in the background on my phone (using Backgrounder), so while I’m home, anything I copy to my mac gets copied to my phone automatically. That way I have a record of the last ~100 things I copied on my Mac (using Quicksilver’s shelf), and on my iPhone (using Pastebot).
I’m not sure how much of a drain Pastebot will be on my iPhone battery, but so far it’s not bad at all.
I haven’t yet found a practical use for the app yet but I am amazed by it, especially the WiFi syncing. For text I type often I use TextExpander. To me this is a beautiful and clever novelty.
Absolutely /love/ the ability to quickly get info/images to/from iphone/mac
Just today I was stuck in Chicago at the airport and needed to email some screengrabs and text of past projects to a colleague for an RFP he was working on. Since I didn’t want to pay $10 for airport wifi to send a single email I used Pastbot and Pastebot sync to get the images and text to my iPhone and composed the email there. Saved me money, and saved the day.
I have been using Pastebot to save everything important enough not to be trusted solely to my memory but still too volatile to be deserving of a note in Evernote (the latter being a somewhat âheavyâ app to be launched several times a day).
If I may make use of this comment to suggest a new feature, I would love to be able to sync my clippings to SimpleText.ws, a feature that WriteRoom has already wisely implemented.
My use is mostly for images, as many said. So far I haven’t been able to find anything extra I may need, but with some more use, probably something will come out.
Today I had the app open while posting to a
WordPress blog. I was thrilled to see that I could place my cursor in the compose field and move a huge chunk of text to the post from my phone via Tapbot. Awesome.
Great way to get info from iPhone to Mac, tried with Mail, Post Box and Skitch. Suggest you provide a list of these programs, and tips for say getting pics into iPhoto. The ability to send “clippings” to Evernote would be really great !.
I use it to copy everything I find while using my iPhone that I want to explore further or need on my desktop machine. Put everything in it’s proper folder and then just copy away.
I also just started using it to send images back to my iPhone that I want to review while I away from my desk. For example, if i need to review some thumbnail icons that I am currently working on, I just copy them to my iPhone for review while I have some down time. Before i had to either constantly sync my iPhone to get these images off of iPhoto, email them to myself or use something like FileMagnet. But this is so much better and a lot more versatile. Pure Awesomeness!
I’m using this with dragon dictation and copying my dictations to my Mac for later use. This post is coming from the dictation now.
As a university student, I just found an amazing way to use Pastebot to jot down notes from websites into point form blistering fast. I just visit websites that are of importance, or journal articles, etc (on my Mac via Safari), hit copy and start clip-boarding snippets of important info onto Pastebot (on my iPhone). Once I have all info, I just open up Textpad (Mac), and then just press down each snippet on Pastebot (iPhone) after adding a bullet. This (for me) effectively allows me to focus more on finding relevant info for papers, assignment, etc to gather sources while knowing that all my important snippets of info are stored on Pastebot.
I was delighted to find that I was able to rotate photos – this was very handy to rotate a photo I got via MMS which was the wrong orientation. The iPhone ‘helpfully’ automatically rotates the photo as you turn the device to view it – but thanks to PastBot I was able to fix that. And then quickly transfer it to my Mac.
I had the idea to do an app similar to PasteBot – but I have to congratulate you for going the extra few miles and adding features that I didn’t even think of.
Well I bought it 30 mins ago, and absolutely love it, I think it’s become my favourite app. I would like to see the ability to follow links and to send them back to the mac, eg. sending it to the mac will open it. Then it could also be useful with a bookmarklet to send a link from the phone to the mac to view on a large scale.
This looks really nice. I’m excited about the search feature. I’m interested in getting info off the web, browsed on the mac, onto the iphone into searchable folders. Other (good) apps that I have like Goodreader and iFiles don’t have a way (that I see) to search through content beyond the open document, to search across all info. Pastebot does do this! Yay!
I’d like to be able to select a whole web page (or section therof) including images and grab that, but only the text is coming through. Or only the image if I explicitly copy that.
@Gospel9:
You can start Preview, then File->New from Clipboard.
My problem with pastebot is that it copies the image file to the clipboard as TIFF although I think the iphone’s camera format is jpg, resulting in unnecessary large files but I think this is an OS X issue, not pastebot.
I must say, that Tapbots is wonderfull. I Love you :-). Your Apps are all greater than great!!! The Design of all your Apps are revolutionary, wonderfull, the Best and commodious! The usability and functionality are also great! I wish I can develop like you, Tapbots.
Mostly I use Pastebot for recessions and to get the paste of my MacBook.
It would be great, if you can add a voice memo and videos. I Miss also that I can’t order the clipping. More special effects would be a great additional feature.
I would love to use it at work but there I can only establish a direct wlan connection to my MacBook. The prefpane does recognize the iPhone but Pastebot believes that there is no WLAN connection … Any chance to fix this?
Thanks and cu
Marco
I use it to collect scraps and design ideas & insipiration.
I’m also one of the unlucky PC Users. Is there any chance of a Pastebot Win Client in the near future?
One thing I’ve noticed – the tapbots.com website freezes Safari. For instance, this page: http://tapbots.com/weightbot . Not sure why, because I can’t be bothered to find out. I can’t be the only one to have noticed this…
I really love this app. One of the best this year.
I’m using it for a few things really:
Primary as a clipboard manager for my Macs, it’s fantastic. My favorite trick so far is doing a screen shot straight to the clipboard using cmd+shift+ctrl+4 (This will give you cross hairs to grab an area or hit space to grab a window) then watching it sync straight to my phone.
I use it to grab bits of content round the web that I want to check out later, images, text, links.
I’m also using it to get my own content such as photos & text messages back to my Macs. Awesome.
The thing that really makes this app work for me is the speed, everything is near instant. So high five from me to the tapbots team!
Twitter draft, quotes storage, andâ¦Text messaging from the Mac. Though missing a Send to Text (SMS) feature, otherwise it’ll be a perfect lazy man’s text app from the Macâ I’m using it for that purpose even lacking this feature, just need to tap more is all.
The beauty of tapbots function is only surpassed by its interface. Tapbots passion for creating elegant and simple software truly shines in all your apps.
I wish the entire iPhone interface was as well designed as your applications, I previewed Convertbot when it was available for free and have since purchased your other two apps and would gladly purchase Convertbot.
Have you ever considered designing a Winterboard interface and selling it in Cydia? I’m quite sure it would be well received.
@Josh C @Mark Jardine – That’s good to know. I don’t really have a major need for this anyway. I think the best part about the app is most definitely the speed. It’s pretty fast even on my 3G phone.
I use it to hold email templates for emails which I repeatedly need to send with only small changes each time.
I also use it when composing forum replies, as a lot of forums don’t render well on a mobile device (you get a tiny textbox to enter your post). Also, if the post submission fails, I can just go back to Pastebot to retrieve all my hard work!
Pastebot is one of those applications I will not need to use daily but will be absolutely indispensable on those days where I DO need it. Its basic image manipulation (specifically crop and rotate) has also freed my iPhone from the eyesore of the Photoshop mobile application. I like to keep my installed apps to a minimum, so it’s always great when a new app provides me with functionality I did not previously have while also implementing features that allow me to eliminate another. Great work!
Just read reviews & will definately be purchasing all TapBots Apps.
PLEASE UPDATE TO PC SYNC!
Overwhelming!
I use it for text. Sync document and work on the go.
I’ve starting using it as a default notepad for everything: lists, blog post drafts, ideas… anything because I know it’s all nicely filed there and easily copyable when I have a connection (iPod Touch user).
Also, I’d like to add my voice to the call for a Pastebot Sync version for PC.
Thanks guys and girls of Tapbots – three out of three!
Importing pictures to my desktop is always a pain and completely random, usually ending with iPhoto crashing.
I would actually send emails with the pictures instead of using the cable to sync.
Now, I can copy and paste directly from the iPhone to my review text. Wicked
Just used Pastebot Sync to compose a long-ish SMS that needed a bit of careful phrasing. Much easier to do on a proper keyboard, then zap it across to the iPhone for sending.
No easier way to add text and images to/from my iPhone. I would love to see expanded text editing with find/replace that includes regular expressions.
I use it all the time. Transferring images back and forth with my Macs and iPhone. I also use it for when I am edited CSS. Looking forward to more filters.
You ever need to copy that really big WEP key this is a savior. Thanks Pastebot
Pastebot is perfect for copying links for iTunes apps and opening them on my phone. No longer to I have to email them to myself!
Sounds like there should be a NotesBot app! Incorporating a notes app with the ability to create new text/image/voice notes and folder password protection will extend the PasteBot idea further. Please include a cloud sync when you do for backups or online access. If that happens, it replaces ShoveBox, Evernote, NoteLife, TextExpander and many other “info” management apps.
There was this app called ZipClip which had a browser right-click “Send to…” that was also very useful. Strangely, it’s not listed in the US store. Glad Pastebot is here to replace it!
@Rick Nunn said: My favorite trick so far is doing a screen shot straight to the clipboard using cmd+shift+ctrl+4 (This will give you cross hairs to grab an area or hit space to grab a window) then watching it sync straight to my phone.
When I try this, what appears in Pastebot is “? Unknown iPhone Data”. Anyone have any ideas how I can fix this? Thanks.
I’ve tried using it alongside Clips by Conceited Software. Press and hold an item in Pastebot to paste to the mac via Pastebot sync, and watch it magically appear in Clips’ Board view. Beautiful!
I am using it in conjunction with the Dragon Dictation app. I’m very excited about being able to both save text quickly into the clipboard where it will be preserved even if I get a call, and also being able to paste directly to my Mac. Amazing! Great work. By the way I wrote this with Dictation and pasted it to my Mac directly to this message. Just downloaded Pasetbot and I love it already.
I would love to see a repository of copied items that show up on the desktop that I could choose to paste in at any time. Maybe something like 5-10 items that you could choose to paste in from the menubar icon dropdown.
Freakin’ awesome though.
Thank you.
Whoops, must have needed to clean that text above after copying it from Dragon Dictation. Maybe this time it will be readable.
@Sam: Are you using the latest version of Pastebot Sync? The unknown data from images is an issue we fixed in v1.0.2.
@Mark – Figured out right after I posted that although I thought I’d downloaded & installed the latest update, I hadn’t. After which a new wrinkle arose for me: I’m not sure how to get the update. I’ve got Leopard with Pastebot v.1.0, so I can’t use the menubar icon; I checked for a Pastebot update in the applications folder in iTunes, but nothing comes up; And when I try option 3, going to the iTunes store to re-download, I only have the option to buy it (i.e. rather than download). I imagine that option 3 is the way to go, and that by clicking on ‘Buy App’ I will not be charged again, but I am a little paranoid, so please do let me know. And thanks for the dynamite app.
@Sam: There’s no new version of Pastebot for your iPhone yet. It’s the Sync app for your Mac. You can get it on our website: http://tapbots.com/pastebot/#sync Just make sure you turn it OFF/ON after installing it.
And, 1 minute after my previous post, I did some googling, realized I wasn’t going to get charged again, and downloaded v.1.0.2. Unfortunately – problem with unknown data type persisting. I’ve got Pastebot 1.0, Pastebot Sync 1.0.2, Leopard 10.5.8.
Turn Pastebot Sync OFF and back ON in the preference pane. It might say v1.0.2, but the old service is probably still running. If that doesn’t work, try restarting your computer.
@Mark – Toggled pastebot sync several times, restarted my computer once, no luck. I do appreciate the help on this. Won’t be able to check back in here for 8 hours or so.
P.S. Is there some wacky preference somewhere that sets the format of screenshots taken via the OS X’s keyboard shortcut screenshot method?
I’ve been using it so far as a way of “syncing my camera roll over to my mac without the need of cables. bluetooth connection to my macbook or my girlfriends iPhone would be lovely :-) Also I cannot figure out how to add more than one device to the pastebot sync program so I have to remove my iPhone to add hers :-(
PS love love love this app
@Sam: Not really sure. Pastebot handle’s PNG files fine though. That’s what I use. It’s more a 10.5 issue. If you still need help, contact us over at support@tapbots.com.
Other Net Said:
“Sounds like there should be a NotesBot app! Incorporating a notes app with the ability to create new text/image/voice notes and folder password protection will extend the PasteBot idea further. Please include a cloud sync when you do for backups or online access. If that happens, it replaces ShoveBox, Evernote, NoteLife, TextExpander and many other âinfoâ management apps.”
I have to agree. Over the last few days I have started using only Pastebot and ditched Evernote. I have yet to find a good note taking app, but I think pastebot comes close. Evernote never has felt right and has such a clunky feel on the desktop and on mobile devices.
Im very impressed, I just hope the more I use it that it continues to run efficiently on my 3Gs. Im sure you guys have plans in future updates. ;-)
I also wish there was a way to sync without requiring wifi, as Im in several situations daily where this is a problem.
The one other thing is, if Im thinking about using this as my notes app, I need a way to do a full export if needed. That just gives me peace of mind while using this app.
So about that Notesbot???
Matt
So far I’ve used the mac sync to transfer documents from my mac to my ipod and a drawing created in and moved to the clipboard from another application to iphotos in my mac.
Pastebot is totally awesome! I absolutely love it. I really love it in conjunction with Pastebot Sync for Mac. That is how I primarily use the app. It is so fast, and for a quick picture copy it is great, and iPhoto reduces the quality of the image, and Pastebot does not.
I would love you guys to develop a way that I can pair with another iPhone, and be able to send things back and fourth between iPhones on a wifi network, that would be awesome!!!
Just a note to say the developers are on the ball and professional – fixed a leopard-related issue quicksmart and notified me by email that they’d done so.
@Matt Norris I agree about the no wifi request. Being able to sync over bluetooth would be fantastic.
I’ve been using Pastebot for about a week now and I absolutely love it, great work Tapbots!
So far I’ve used Pastebot to add a wallpaper to my iPhone by taking a screengrab of a show I was watching on my laptop (ããããããã¤ãããã®ããã¨ããã¡ãã ãã), I’ve also used it to store some text I wanted to send to various people in various ways, and have drafted blog posts.
You guys have made a beautiful thing.
If I could say just one thing, rather than a sepia image filter, a contrast filter would mean that I would use Pastebot instead of a photofixing app too.
Since I am a student I use pastbot when I take notes from the blackboard. If the teacher makes a graph or similar I do not have enough time to write it off. Then pastbot a very good solution to the problem. One way pastbot can be much more useful for me and probably many others may be if there is a button in pastbot which provides direct access to the camera and taking a picture appears automatically into pastbot.
thanks for 3 really good app.
Just downloaded it and I’m finding it one of your slickest interface – ever. Convertbot was fun but a little bit of a hassle but this is fun an functional. I’m with other window users and hope you’ll release a windows Pastebot sync in the VERY near future. I was going to hold off but it was too pretty too and I trust that you will release something soon! Interface is so much better than ClipAgent I was using..
Guys, I have all 3 of your apps and I love them. The excellent, intuitive app interfaces make each one a blast to use and to top it all off, they are extremely helpful.
I have one request and I am sure there are others who will back me up here. The request is that you add the ability to create multiple accounts in WeightBot. Reason being is I can only track my weight and my fiance would like to track hers as well and she doesn’t have an iPhone. This would be helpful for families and or couples who only have 1 iPhone amongst them.
So do you guys thing this is possible in a future update?
It’s a great way to get an address on my Mac into the iPhone Maps app. Once it’s synced to Pastebot you can of course copy and paste into Maps, but you can also just do the Search in Google action. That opens Safari, but clicking the link in Google will open and fill Maps for you.
It would be nice if there were a direct Open Map action.
I think it is a great app for editorial design… with pastebot i can copy all the texts previously and have them in an easily accessible form when ever i need them on my mac.
I can only ask for you guys to to add the option to prevent the iphone from going to sleep when pastebot is open! It would be perfect!
Oh… and keep up the good work! I absolutely love all your apps!
Happy 2010!!!
A great app. Not just functional but elegant too. I run multiple businesses and belong to multiple organizations. One of my major uses of Pastebot is to create multiple email templates, complete with organization-specific headers, body structure, and closing signature structure, all with professional graphics elements. This completely blows away my professional colleagues, whose emails to me are lamely tagged with “This email was sent from my Blackberry/iPhone.” etc.
Wish list:
1) PC Sync (please!!!)
2) Option to change the order of clipboard and folder items.
3) Notebot (with outline structuring and re-ordering)
Thanks. You guys are awesome!
Pastebot should of coarse be able to sync with Windows, but the next update should allow me to copy several different things and they all show up separately on the clipboard. For example, if I copy text from one persons text message then go to another persons text message and copy it, I should see both show up separately on the Pastebot clipboard.
@Skinnzo: Your request is impossible because apps can’t run in the background. If you want that feature, email Apple about it. :)
I just want to say thanks! I love inspiring people..
When I create “bulleted” note in PB (set of paragrpahs) and then paste it into mindmapping software (MindManager), it creates subtopics to the selected topic. Each line creates separate topic.
It pastes pictures the way pictures are being pasted, it also adds the links as links – if the note is a link.
So what? I browse with my iPhone, keep the various links and text parts and then just go to my desktop mindmap and paste them where they belong. No formatting lost.
Wonderful. As a result, it is more convenient than running special solutions for synchronizing mindmaps. In my case (doing extensive web research) PB competes with MindMeister, MindManager and Evernote. And the winner is…. Still too early to announce, wait till February:)
And yes: “Send as SMS” would definitely be a great addition!
Please add the camera api. That would be great because it would save a step. No faster way to take a pic and bring it to your mac then by taking a pic in pastebot!
@Brian: It’s already there. Just hit Edit, then the + button in the top left.
I love the app and all, but I NEED Windows sync! It works fine by itself, but it could work better with PC sync.
Looking forward to the future for you guys! Love the apps!
I am lazy to get the data cable or send an email everytime I want to transfer images from my iPhone.
Pastebot helps to transfer images from my phone seamlessly and I can be lazy again :). Thanks!
Pastebot looks great, but if you could add an “Add to Evernote” function within pastebot that would greatly increase my work flow, as it is I can copy and paste between the two apps, but having it built in would save a lot of time. Thanks for the great apps!
After finding out, Pastebot has an url handler, I simply modified the del.icio.us bookmarklet, copied it to the iPhone via Pastebot and now I have a bookmarklet in mobile safari that sends the url to Pastebot.
From there I can copy it to the Mac and view the website on the bigger screen.
Here’s the code for everyone who is interested (hope this works in the comments):
javascript:location.href=’pastebot://’+encodeURIComponent(location.href)
Just make a new bookmark on the iPhone and paste the code in the adress field (in the edit mode).
Hope that’s usefull as for me and please build more bots. I love them!
Whenever I have to go to a new place, I check the map online and copy the image to Pastebot and use it as reference on my way there.
First of all…wow….genius. The aesthetics…the functionality. I just downloaded it today. And it worked exactly as I imagined. My wife was driving some distance to get some groceries and I decided to do some work on my macbook. While going down the road I realized I needed some text from the net, so I quickly created a computer-to-computer network between my iphone and macbook., snagged the text with my iphone, and copied the text right into my doc. Sweet. I’m very interested to see how pastebot progresses.
Slick useful app – a must-have!
Please make it sync with Tiger… other apps can (you can do it, too)!!! In the meantime I have to use Dropbox for photos which is great at a distance but lame up close.
Simply awesome. I was always looking for an app like Pastebot didn’t discover until l saw a review from Smoking Apples Blog today. I am always pasting links, maps and etc. Before i keep on sending via mail thats long gone now from today. In the future I would love to see Pastebot would work via 3G too.Ability to send v-card and open a link via Safari on iPhone.That would be an icing in the cake for me. Thank you and keep up the good work.
First off, I just want to say that I think Pastebot is the de facto example of what an app should be. It performs one function incredibly well, is zippy, and stable. Great job guys! Now if you really wanna see what I use it for, check out the post I did on your product and mine and my girfriend’s website :p http://geekspodcast.com/2010/01/21/hands-on-with-pastebot-for-iphone/
I use it a lot for copying multiple things into Twittelator:
1) Oh look – a post I want to tweet about!
2) Copy a quote, for example.
3) Fire up PasteBot.
4) Go back to Safari and copy the URL.
5) Fire Up Twittelator and start a new tweet.
6) Paste the URL.
7) Fire up PasteBot and click the quote.
8) Fire up Twittelator and paste the quote.
It works great and is so much simpler than any other way.
I would love to be able to sync Mac-to-Mac, and for that matter, Mac-to-PC across the cloud. Take my clipboard anywhere! But even so, it’s one of my essential apps now.
This is an awesome software. It work just as expected with everything you need. On the other side, it lack things that you don’t really need but would like to have as a bonus. So…. Whishlist:
1. Windows Support. That would be very nice for non OS X users.
2. Clipboard synchronization. I’d love if it could sync with multiple computer AT THE SAME TIME and not one OR the other. That way, I could copy stuff from my desktop and paste it on my laptop :D
3. Support for creating our own filters using Regex
Would love a Windows sync! Religiously use Pastebot Sync on my mac, but once I get to work I experience a loss in productivity.
Please please please make a winsync!!
would be interested in an android port as it was one of the best iphone apps i had. Any chance of that on the horizon?