Jason Michael Perry

I must admit, the idea of being able to blog from my iPhone definitely skewed my decision when picking WordPress as my blog software.  I had this idea of me live blogging from remote locations armed with nothing but my iPhone 3G…

As many of you know WordPress has officially released a native iPhone client.  Using the application you can blog, upload pictures, and even preview blog posts on Mobile Safari.  I recently set up my blog using the software and found the application to be only OK.

The idea feels more solid than the actual software, but we can hope that updates in the near future fix many of the things it lacks.  So all that said, here’s my review:

The Good

Installation and set up was super easy.  I enabled desktop support in the WordPress admin, gave it my blog’s URL and a valid username/password.  From there it pulled in all the data about my blog and just worked.

I managed to make a few posts from my iPhone and they show up with absolutely no problem.  From the phone I can easily incorporate pictures I’ve taken from my iPhone (or synced).  The category feature works as expected.

The Bad

If I connect to my blog it dosen’t auto-sync to display my most recent posts.  I find my self refreshing to view the most recent posts every time I launch the application, something that should surly happen on default.  Some data seems to never refresh.  My category list refuses to display any categories I’ve added in the last few days.

No support for custom fields or other advanced options for a post.  My theme makes heavy use of custom fields, so some posts won’t display properly in my theme until I log into the WordPress admin and add them.  Many of my advanced options are not critical, but it would be nice to see some of those features added tot he application.

Another issues is the editor.  In its current iteration it does not support an HTML editor view or color coding for syntax.  Its tough enough writing a lengthy article on the iPhone so every bit helps.  I imagine an HTML editor would be tough to implement, but syntax coloring HTML tags would go a long long way.  The Apple keyboard can also be cumbersome when writing HTML.  Hunting for the <,>, and / keys can be quite painful..and especially if you make heavy use of HTML in your posts.

Last issue is the media selector.  While I can upload media to the blog, thats it.  The software doesn’t allow me to make any changes to the image.  Some very basic options for at least resizing he image would be very helpful

Conclusion

WordPress for the iPhone its good, not great.  I think the next few versions could make this a great application that I can not live with out.  Right now it feel more like a novelty item, but a decent solution if I find my self in a blogging emergency.