I like to moderate comments when I’m waiting for something: a checkout clerk to help me, the dentist to call me back to the office, a soy chai to be made. I don’t lug my laptop everywhere I go,* so I love it that we have mobile apps that make this possible. I don’t know of any other blogging platform that has mobile apps for iPhone, Android and Blackberry. Do you?
The iPhone app is up to version 2.2 (note that iPhone app version numbers do not correlate to WordPress core versions, due to separate dev cycles), while the Android and Blackberry apps are brand new. You can write posts (save drafts or publish right away), moderate comments, blog photos from your phone (and video on Blackberry!**), and more. Check out the glory that is mobile WordPress in the image below:
“But what about my Nokia,” you ask? Raanan Bar-Cohen, who oversees the mobile projects, recently announced:
“We are very excited to share with all of you that in the coming weeks we’ll be opening up a beta test for the official Open Source WordPress for Nokia app. For developers who are interested in getting involved, we just opened up a dev blog with details, links to the source code and trac tickets, and an early alpha build. We’ll be leveraging the Qt framework which means will be able to support both the S60 and Maemo platforms.”
W00t!
Getting Involved
All of these mobile WordPress apps are free and open source. They are developed in the same manner as WordPress core, which means anyone can contribute! If you’ve got some mad mobile development skills and want to get involved, a) you’re awesome, and b) here are a bunch of useful links.
Development Blogs: Android | BlackBerry | iPhone
Development Tracs: Android | Blackberry | iPhone
Feedback Forums: Android | BlackBerry | iPhone
Language Support: WordPress users come from all over the world. The mobile apps here are available in multiple languages but need volunteers to enable even more people to use them. If you’re interested in helping localize these mobile apps, you can get involved by visiting translate.wordpress.org.
Getting the Apps
So go for it — download the app for your platform of choice and soon you, too, can be live posting about how slow the cashier is while you wait for him to ring you up!
* Okay, yes, I do bring my laptop everywhere, but I leave it in the bag on these occasions.
** Video support should be coming soon to the iPhone and Android apps.