[Review] Instead of publishing my review of the device itself, this is a review of an application on the Apple iPad! Obviously the review of the device is all over the Internet by now, and most people pretty much can't get a iPad now. So instead of going through a product in which you cannot buy now, why not think about this question: Do you REALLY need the product... for blogging?
Blogging on iPad:
One of the less talk about usage of the iPad is Blogging. I, myself didn't spend close to a thousand dollars to blog on the device. Yet after addicted to web surfing on this mobile device, I decided to go all out to see if it could be my secondary blogging device.
First, I need a blog client. I could use the web-based client on blogger.com. It's free and is basically functional on the Safari mobile browser but you have to type in HTML mode. I tried and i would say that the experience is not very solid. For example, you have to zoom in on the page to type, something that I could live with. However, the real problem is the possibility of losing the draft post that I have written as draft work can be lost forever during a data connection lost during my typing.
I need a blog client. I quick search slows up CLT Studio's Blogpress. It cost me USD$2.99. There aren't much other options to be honest. Anyway, I am just go ahead and to stick to my review of Blogpress here.
Obviously, my blog host is Blogger and it is compatible. Blogpress supports other formats that should include most major hosts.
What's in and What's not:
The interface is really simple and the objective is really for users to send up the blog. There is no formatting tools available and essentially you can't bold anything or input point formatting. No italic... And the list goes on.
If you are familiar with this blog, you will notice I usually have an image at the start of each post. With Blogpress, when inserting an image, there is no way not to do without a spacing on top of the image. So this post begins with a paragraph instead.
Speaking of images, Blogpress allows uploading of images to to Picasa web album and I don't see other options for now. Will it be a problem? I think not unless there are reasons why you insist to use other image hosts. Images have to be uploaded via the iPad photo album. You can't insert image link to put an image.
Videos go up too, via another Google service: Youtube. Blogpress can also detect your location when drafting the post and this information can be tagged to the post.
The app also shows a list of your blog posts (drafts and recently posted) on the left side of the screen when the iPad is in landscape mode.
I left my biggest gripe with Blogpress last. It could potentially destroy the usability of this app. And that is quite simply: there is no option to tag your post.
Wrap Up:
The lack of formatting tools and tagging are major faults that will prevent you from having a full blogging experience. It could be mean that USD$2.99 is rather expensive for such a limited application.
However, Blogpress does what it says, send your post up. If you does not use formatting at all, then perhaps Blogpress is an option you can explore to blog on your iPad, like me.
On a side note, you might be wondering if I am serious about typing on the entire post on a touchscreen device. Yet, i am having fun doing it. Especially on the landscape mode where the keyboard are fairly large and with the help of the word predictor, the typing accuracy is pretty good. Now, iPad is really capable of doing many stuff... If only programming can be done as well...
Update: I tag this post and added the formating via blogger.com.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
