The much anticipated Wordpress iPhone app hit the app store yesterday with some impressive mobile blogging tools and features.  Ever since being announced only two and half weeks ago, Wordpress fans have been eagerly waiting the opportunity to blog-on-the-go.  Despite the mobile aspects of the app, it does have its shortcomings.

Most notably, linking and other HTML-based tasks are hard to accomplish given the lack of copy-and-paste support on the iPhone.  Given, you can hand-code the link’s HTML, but it becomes rather cumbersome using the iPhone’s keyboard.  Other dissatisfaction comes with the fact that saved drafts in your Wordpress queues aren’t carried over to the iPhone app, meaning drafts started on your computer won’t be available on your iPhone.  Also, no comment moderation functionality is available in this version, which will peeve many users with heavy traffic and commentors, according to Download.com’s blog.

Shortcomings aside, the app provides powerful mobile-publishing functionality that goes way beyond most people’s expectations.  You can upload photos either from your existing library or snap a quick shot with your phone’s camera, and attach instantly to a post.  Another great feature is that whatever you write can be saved on your phone, so you can work on dozens of posts at once and only publish what you want, when you want it.  There’s also a new preview function that shows you what your post will look like without sending you to Safari.  All functionality can be carried out in the app itself, photo posting, previews, etc. which is what people seem to prefer. 

The app will connect to any Wordpress.com hosted blogs, as well as self-hosted blogs sporting the 2.5.1 version or higher.  Through personal use of the app, I’ve found it connects effortlessly within a few seconds to every blog I’ve added, though some have reported it takes a little longer for self-hosted blogs. 

The true benefit of the app is the photo-blogging aspects that are now available with the iPhone.  Utilizing the high-quality camera, and instant attachment to posts in the Wordpress app means traveling bloggers documenting their journey or sharing photos of findings during the way will no longer have to wait until they get back to their PC to publish their posts.  It should be interesting to see the onslaught of food and car-photo blogs that appear after the app makes its rounds.  For bloggers that understand and appreciate the importance of fresh content, whether or not it’s just photos, can finally rejoice now that the app is finally live. 

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 9:35 am under Free Apps, iPhone, iPod Touch.  Print This Post

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