Blogging on the iPad2 - continued

Blogging on the move is getting easier, but it's still far from perfect.

I have taken my iPad2 on my European vacation again this year, and no, it's not just to drive my wife crazy (although that is a side benefit). It does make it much easier, in fact possible, to check emails and tweets.

But for blogging? It's still awkward, at best.

Blogger
Google's Blogger system, the one I use for this blog, still has limitations within the iOS version of Safari, which runs on the iPad. You cannot upload photos from the iPad's photo library. The button is grayed out. You can link photos and other images from a website.

The workaround is to email the post to the address that Google gives you, but then you're limited to one picture per post. From the iPad, you have to choose the photo, then select Email Photo from the Photos screen. For the text, you can write in the body of the email. Send it to the address Google provides, and Google posts it to your blog.

The other workaround is to upload a bunch of photos to a Picasa or flickr account. I haven't yet decided whether I want to do that. It would be interesting to see if I could link pictures from iCloud, but that will take more research.

There is a Blogger app for iPhone, but it does not take advantage of the iPad's larger screen. It's kind of annoying to use. More on that in a later post.

Wordpress

Africa from Spain - on the travel blog
scottstravelblog.wordpress.com

I use Wordpress for my travel blog (www.scottstravelblog.wordpress.com) and its mobile app is more functional than using Google blogger on Safari. wordpress has an app for the iPad that allows you to add photos, either from a website or uploaded for the iPad library, and you can add more than one. Unfortunately, the software always puts the picture at the end of the text, no matter where the cursor is when you hit the attach-image button; fortunately, it's not difficult to select, cut and paste it where you want. While you can choose the size of the image, unfortunately, there is no caption function s the is in the desktop browser version of Blogger.

Wordpress also has a habit of freezing. If you try to use the app as a word processor, then click or touch outside of the window, you cannot change the content. This is probably a bug in the Wordpress app, and I hope they fix it soon.

I have found that the best strategy is to use a separate word processor (I use Pages) to write the blog post, the copy and paste it into the Wordpress or Blogger window.

So, blogging while mobile with the iPad is still not as easy as blogging from a desktop or even notebook computer. It's much better than it was even as recently as last summer, but there are still some tweaks that Wordpress needs to make.

Google really needs to develop a Blogger app for the iPad and other mobile device. And they need to make sure it's available on Apple's app store website.