When the news broke about Windows Phone 7 arriving without Copy/Paste feature, it made quite a stink. Analysts were gobsmacked, and fans were confused and ticked off. Why would Microsoft take such a huge leap backwards? 

Well it turns out, they won’t be. Citing well-known Windows blogger, Long Zheng, BGR reports that the Windows platform WILL be offering copy and paste — just not in time for launch. 

Microsoft wanted a more elegant feature that fits the experience of its newest platform. That  translated into some hard hours for the dev team, which did ultimately succeed in figuring out stuff like UI and implementation, but just needed more time to get all that into the codebase. 

The good news is that this shouldn’t delay any interested, but anxious fans from picking up a WP7S device. If you can’t wait for a completed OS to come shrink wrapped with your phone, you’ll be able to get the feature via software update at some time post-purchase. 

Frankly, it would’ve been weird for them forego this. Way back, this was one of the biggest WinMo functions that kept some fence-sitting consumers from the lure of the iPhone, which took years to finally add this to the OS. So thanks for quieting the unrest, Long! There’s only one last question: Any chance that pesky multitasking thing will get addressed too? 

Via: BoyGenius Report, IStartedSomething.com

UPDATE: Engadget's Nilay Patel offers the following clarification on the multitasking issue: 

"...first-party apps like the Zune player and IE can run in the background, and third-party apps are actually left running in a suspended state (Microsoft calls it "dehydrated") as long as the system doesn't need any additional resources. If the user cycles back to an app, it's resumed ("rehydrated") and life continues merrily along, but if the user opens other apps and the system needs additional resources, the app is killed without any indication or remorse." 

So there's sort of a multiple apps operation on board, but it's not performed in a traditional way. It's based solely on the demand you'll place on your handset's system resources. So if you don't do a lot of crazy stuff simultaneously, you may not even notice the difference. But for anyone who's planning on running a dozen programs while listening to music, surfing the Web and downloading apps — I guess Microsoft is just trying to save you — and your device — from yourself. The alternative? Slow, buggy, crash-prone user experience. Or in other words, WinMo 6.