Using the WordPress iPhone app
This week I’ve been trying out the new version of the free wordpress app for the iPhone. I was quite disappointed by the previous version (version 1) as it “lost” some of my drafts. This new version seemed to be a huge improvement, although I still found some problems.
The only iPhone app that lets you write posts, upload photos, edit pages, and manage comments on your blog from your iPhone or iPod Touch.
Comment moderation is brilliant
The app let’s you manage multiple blogs comments, posts, and pages and is useful whilst away from your computer. It also let’s you write posts and save them as local drafts, or publish them to your blog. The interface is much smoother and better looking than its previous incarnation, for instance the comments list now shows gravatars which is nice to see. On the subject of comments, I like how it let’s you approve, unapprove, delete, and mark comments as spam – for me this is actually easier than logging into the online admin section to manage comments on most occasions.
The posts interface lets you set title, tags, categories, attach photos, and of course write the post itself. Another welcome feature is that it automatically saves your post drafts when you leave the app.
To put the wordpress app through it’s paces I decided to create this post using the iPhone entirely – it was then I realised some of it’s shortcomings.
I was hoping the post editor would work a lot like the tinymce editor in WordPress’ admin interface, however I was dissapointed when I saw it was just a basic plain text editor. You cannot add HTML or insert images inline – it does not even support lists or spell checking. Those features could have made this app great for publishing posts whilst on the road; instead it’s really only suited for quick, simple posts or for writing basic drafts to later edit via the online admin interface. I should point out you can ‘attach’ images to the post (its adds a gallery at the bottom), just not within the post content as you can online.
When it came to changing this post from local draft to draft for some reason it wiped my post out completely! Luckily I had it stored in the clipboard, but still, that’s a nasty bug.
Overall I was disappointed by the posts feature, but happy with the comment moderation features. If you only write quick and simple posts then this app will serve you well. Otherwise it’s really only useful for writing rough drafts, although I’ve seen other writing apps do this better as some have built in spell checkers and word counts.
Since this app is 100% free I still class it as a must have, but I really hope for more improvements to the post editor in the future.
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Kevin Gamin says:
When you add photos to your post via the iPhone app, you do have the option, after publishing, to cut/paste the HTML code for each photo into it’s proper location in your post. I did that with my WordPress app review for my site, which I wrote entirely in the app. It’s a clunky way to operate, but it is possible to put your photos where you want them using the app.
See my full review article at http://gaminnet.info/?p=230.
Comment made on January 1, 2010 at 11:00 pm