As the world goes more and more mobile, people want to be able to take as much of their life with them as possible. Many people, including yours truly, write for a blog — be it your own, or someone else’s as a writer. It only seems natural that we should be able to blog wherever we are and not have to wait until we get back to our computers to get work done.
Luckily for us bloggers, we have a few choices available when it comes to using an iOS device to manage blogs. Today, we’re going to be taking a look at Poster, one of the better blogging apps available. Let’s get into it after the break.
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Getting Started
Poster is a very light app that’s quick to download and install on your device. On first launch, you’ll be prompted to add a blog to the app. As of the time this article was written, the app supports WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress blogs, and I’m not sure if the developer has any intention of adding support for other services to the app. After all, WordPress is what the vast majority of bloggers use, so I can’t really call this a negative.
You can add as many blogs as you like to the app, but you only need one to get started. Once you’re in, you’ll be presented with a list of your posts, each showing the title and a couple of lines from the start of the article. It was at this stage that I noticed how minimal and clean looking the app was; everything down to the typography used is very easy on the eye.
Just reading your posts is a pleasure, and when you start a new one you can import from external sources.
From here, you can go ahead and edit drafts, publish articles, add new ones, adjust things like categories and tags, and so on. Most of the important features of WordPress are here in the app, and the small ones that are missing are normally from plugins you have installed (which I’m not sure the app can support even if the developer wanted to). Still, the majority of tasks can be completed from the app.
Writing a Post
From what I can imagine, the most common use of apps like these is to write posts. Be it on the bus, the train or anywhere where you need to use your iPhone to get work done. The thing is, no matter what app you use, writing articles on an iPhone is never going to be as productive and comfortable as writing on a larger device — normally a computer (or perhaps an iPad for some). There are certain things that the app can’t change, such as the hardware of the iPhone, how it feels to hold it whilst you type and all that kind of stuff. However, there are optimisations apps can make to ensure typing on an iPhone is as comfortable as possible.
Things such as having a comfortable font to look at, making good use of space on the screen, having text formatting options available without too many taps — all these things are essential to a good experience. I’m glad to say that Poster does an amazing job of really optimising itself for the iPhone.
The interface of Poster is visually pleasing.
While writing, the title bar disappears above the screen to give your main content optimum room, the fonts used throughout the app are clean and beautiful, formatting/Markdown options are available through a row of icons just above the keyboard that don’t interfere with your writing — I can’t think of many other ways the developer could have optimised this app for the iPhone’s screen and hardware experience.
The app also supports custom post types. Whilst this isn’t a feature I’ve ever used, I understand it’s absolutely essential for many writers, and Poster claims to be the only iOS app that supports this. Nice.
Doing the Other Stuff
Once you’ve finished your article, what can you do with it? A lot of bloggers will want to save it as a draft to proofread once they’ve taken their eyes back to the real world for a while. Well, tapping the small cog icon on screen lets you adjust publishing settings (including saving as a draft, either locally or on the server to pick up on another device) and complete essential tasks such as adding tags and categories to your post.
You can also set a featured image for your post — essential to many bloggers. However, you can’t do it without also inserting that image into your post. It’s a slight annoyance, but you can just remove the code from your article right there within the app anyway, so it’s not too bad an oversight.
You can also edit your blog’s pages as well. While this is something most bloggers only need do very rarely, it’s nice to have the option to do it right within the app.
UI and Performance
Performance of the app was flawless in my experience. I never experienced any crashing or freezing/hanging, and I didn’t come across any bugs at all.
The settings and inspector options are thorough and useful.
The UI, as I’ve briefly touched on through this article, is fantastic. It’s minimal, easy-to-use, doesn’t bombard you with things you don’t need and keeps things to a minimum where possible. I’ve used other blogging apps that seem very cluttered – the same certainly isn’t to be said for Poster. I love the UI here.
One concern for some may be the lack of landscape support. To me, typing in landscape, especially on the iPhone 5′s screen (which this app is optimised for, by the way) isn’t very productive, and doesn’t make for a great use of space. You end up with about a half-inch of space left for your content, so I can understand why the developer left it out of the app.
Conclusion
Poster is about as good as mobile blogging gets. While some may be put off my its lack of landscape support, I think for the great experience the app provides you with, it’s well worth its $2.99 price tag — it’s a small price to pay for added productivity.