Apple has committed to building cross-device copy and paste support between iPhone and Windows PCs, following a formal interoperability request from Microsoft under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act. Apple proposed its project plan on June 26, 2026, and the engineering work is not expected to be complete until fall 2027, meaning public availability could slip into early 2028.
Microsoft submitted the request on March 25, 2026, through Apple’s EU interoperability request system, a mechanism Apple created to comply with its DMA obligations as a designated gatekeeper for iOS, App Store, and Safari. In its submission, Microsoft explained that it cannot currently offer anything comparable to Apple’s Universal Clipboard, which lets users copy and paste content across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Microsoft described the intended experience in three specific terms:
- Copy text or other supported content on iPhone and paste it directly on a Windows PC, and vice versa
- Perform common productivity workflows without needing to foreground an app or take repeated explicit actions to initiate a transfer
- Experience clipboard synchronization as a lightweight, continuous background capability rather than a manual, app-driven operation
Apple’s proposed solution would let an iPhone share and import items from its pasteboard to a paired accessory, treating a Windows PC in much the same way it handles third-party wearables. The architecture closely mirrors the Accessory Notifications option Apple added for third-party wearables in the EU with iOS 26.5. Users would grant one-time consent per paired device, after which clipboard content can flow between iPhone and PC without repeated prompts.
AccessorySetupKit and its growing friction
Microsoft’s implementation will depend on AccessorySetupKit, the same framework that Meta recently challenged in its own EU interoperability request for AirPods-style pairing support across iPhones and iPads. For Microsoft, AccessorySetupKit handles the permission layer, establishing which Windows PCs are allowed to receive clipboard content from a given iPhone. The framework is becoming a recurring point of friction in Apple’s DMA compliance story, with third-party developers finding that Apple’s chosen solution routes them through a narrower API than they were expecting.
Currently, an app can only read an iPhone’s clipboard if it is actively running in the foreground and the user grants clipboard access with each individual copy and paste action. The new feature would represent a meaningful loosening of that restriction, at least for paired devices with prior consent.
