Apple Plans iPhone-to-Windows Clipboard Sharing in the EU After a Microsoft Request

Apple has agreed to build a way for iPhone users in the European Union to copy something on their phone and paste it on a Windows PC, and vice versa. The plan appeared on Apple’s EU interoperability requests page, where it was spotted by MacRumors and reported by 9to5Mac.

Microsoft filed the request (ID FB22329535) on March 25. It said it couldn’t offer anything comparable to Universal Clipboard, the feature that lets people copy and paste across their own Apple devices, and argued that “cross-device copy and paste is a foundational productivity interaction that users expect to ‘just work’ across their primary devices.” Microsoft asked for continuous clipboard syncing that works without bringing an app to the foreground or repeating a transfer action each time.

Apple picked up the request on March 31 and moved it to the next phase of review on April 27, AppleInsider reported. At that point Apple warned that a solution might not prove feasible, including if it would compromise the integrity of the operating system, and said it had not yet assessed the impact on its intellectual property.

On June 26, Apple confirmed it would go ahead. The design follows the Accessory Notifications and Accessory Live Activities frameworks Apple added in iOS 26.5. A developer’s extension will be notified when items are copied to the clipboard and can then pass them to a paired device using the Accessory Transport Extension framework. Microsoft will have to use AccessorySetupKit for pairing, so users grant consent once for each PC.

Apple called the work a “significant engineering effort.” It expects to finish development by fall 2027 and ship a developer beta shortly afterward, ahead of a public release. That points to iOS 28, though Apple hasn’t named a version, and AppleInsider noted the feature may miss the initial release, whose beta starts in June.

Apple’s filings describe the feature as EU-only. Some earlier changes forced by the Digital Markets Act, such as allowing game emulators, did end up worldwide.