I know this is possible as Tapbots Pastebot does this. I am trying to grab the UIPasteboard when my iPhone app is running in the background and add it to a UITableView just as Pastebot does but I am also trying to shorten the link, if its a URL and copy that back to the UIPastboard so its ready for the user to paste anywhere. Now Pastebot apparently runs in the background by playing an audio file