GoKawiilApple has outlined plans to let users copy and paste content between an iPhone and a Windows PC, following an interoperability request from Microsoft in the European Union. Here are the details.
Feature could be limited to the EU
As spotted by MacRumors, a new entry on Apple’s Interoperability Requests in the EU page shows that the company has agreed to develop a solution that allows extensions to share and import iPhone clipboard items with paired devices, including Windows PCs.
In Microsoft’s original request, received on March 25, 2026, the company said it could not currently offer a feature comparable to Universal Clipboard, which allows users to copy and paste content across Apple devices.
Microsoft goes on to ask Apple to provide persistent clipboard access that would enable continuous syncing between an iPhone and a Windows PC, outlining three main use cases:
Copy text or other supported content on their iPhone and paste it directly on their Windows PC, and vice versa.
Perform common productivity workflows without needing to foreground an app or take explicit repeated actions to initiate a transfer.
Experience clipboard synchronization as a lightweight, continuous capability rather than a manual, app-driven operation.
The company argues that “cross-device copy and paste is a foundational productivity interaction that users expect to ‘just work’ across their primary devices,” adding that its intent “is not to replace or replicate Apple’s system experience, but to enable a basic level of cross-device productivity that users already expect when working across devices.”
Apple, in turn, replied on April 27, saying that following an initial assessment of Microsoft’s request, it had decided to move it “to the next phase of our interoperability process.”
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