Apps: WordPress 2.0 for iPhone arrives with new interface, features

Although I’ve yet to put it to the test, there’s a lot to like just reading through the changes made to this open source project. Have a look at what’s been added and, just as important, what’s been fixed in this milestone release.

Over 15 months after version 1 shipped, WordPress 2 for iPhone has finally arrived on the App Store (iTunes, free). Interestingly, it’s been posted as a new app, so the previous version won’t update to it automatically — you will have to download it as a new app.

“Our efforts were focused on creating a better user experience — the beginnings of a user interface overhaul that we’ll continue with the next version, and eliminating the bugs and incompatibilities with some self-hosted WordPress setups that was the source of the majority of the support requests we see in the forum,” WordPress for iPhone project member Matt Thomas.

And, here’s what’s new and been fixed in version 2:

• A new, more efficient user interface that makes it faster to switch between comments, posts, and pages.
• Various user interface refinements and bug fixes
• New Comments interface, with Gravatars and the author URL shown in the comment list
• Passwords are now stored in the keychain
• Posts are now automatically saved and restored if network connection is lost during publishing
• Added persistence, so the app re-opens in the blog you last used
• Added an interface for manually entering the XMLRPC endpoint for non-standard setups
• And, a whole bunch o’ bug fixes including rotation-related visual glitches, malformed XML, post saving issues, photos ordering and more.

I’m kind of excited about this release as it seems to have brought forward several critical features — persistence and comment moderation being just two — and quashed some longstanding bugs. It looks like a winner.

Dig into WordPress 2 for iPhone and drop us a note with your impressions in the comments below…

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