Apps
9 Essential Apps for Blogging from the iPad
The iPad is not the ideal tool for blogging, but with the right selection of apps it’s easy to post from the iPad.
I would hate to blog from the iPad everyday, but these apps allow me to compose and post full articles to GottaBeMobile and my personal blog when it’s not easy to grab a notebook.
My aversion to blogging from the iPad stems from the inability touch type accurately and quickly on glass, but with a iPad keyboard case solves half the problem.
These 9 apps for blogging on the iPad are the other half of the solution, allowing iPad users to blog without a laptop.
I wrote this entire article using some of these apps with only minor final editing done on my laptop.
Text Editing
There are two approaches to editing the text part of the article you want to post, writing in a text editor or in a blogging app.
I recommend writing in a good text editor and then pasting the text into the a blogging app when finished. This prevents lost work from the frequent WordPress app crashes.
Text editors also provide fewer distractions, allowing writers to focus on the task at hand.
Users who prefer to write directly in a blogging app would be best served with Blogsy, which unlike the WordPress iPad app, doesn’t crash every other day.
Blogsy does the job for entering, editing and formatting text on your iPad before uploading to your blog. In addition to editing text, Blogsy makes lets users insert pictures from the camera roll or photo sharing sites like Flickr. The app also handles YouTube embedding, but it isn’t compatible with every blog.
For those who want a good text editor instead of working in Blogsy, there’s the free Evernote app. It lets you type text and sync it across multiple devices, making it easy to start a post on the iPad, continue on the iPhone with dictation and finish on a computer before posting.
I prefer to use Pages ($9.99) for all of my text editing on the iPad. Pages is the best iPad Word processing app I’ve used.
If you want a simple text editor for distraction free writing, try Simplenote (Free with $19.99 in app purchase for added features). I like the simplicity and the fact that it syncs between iPhone, iPad and computer using their server.
Blogsy supports a number of blogging platforms including;
- WordPress (both WordPress.com and self-hosted)
- Blogger
- Posterous
- TypePad
- MovableType
- Drupal
- Joomla
- IBM Connections
The WordPress app works better than it used to, but not as well as Blogsy. Blogsy also offers more features than WordPress. The downside is that Blogsy forces users to spend some time learning the complicated interface.
Once you have your text editing and formatted as you like it in Blogsy or WordPress, you will want to add some media to spice it up. Pictures and video help make a blog post.
Image Editing
Use one of these great iOS photography apps to capture photos on your iPad or iPhone, or use the built-in camera app on the iPhone for fast access to the shutter. The iPad Camera Connection kit ($29.00) makes it a snap to import photos from the iPhone or a DLSR.
Once I have my images on my iPad I use a photo editor to crop and enhance the images I plan to use in my blog post.
Snapseed ($4.99) is my image editing app of choice. It has advanced image enhancement tools as well as filters that give your images a cool vintage effect or to transform it into a beautiful black and white image.
Flickrstackr ($1.99) is a great tool for interfacing with your Flickr account directly on you iPad. It lets you upload and download images on Flickr. If you run a commercial blogging site you can also find images that photographers have tagged as “creative commons” meaning you can use them free with attribution. This lets you add beautiful images to your blog post without fear of lawyers contacting you.
Video Editing
You can shoot video with you iPhone and import it to the iPad for editing in Apple’s iMovie app. The app works well for simple editing so long as you don’t plan to use AVCHD video from a camera. I shoot video using my iPhone 4S or my Nikon point-and-shoot camera and import it using the iPad Camera Connection Kit.
Recently I found an even betters solution for video editing. It comes from pro video editing king Avid. I reviewed Avid Studio for iPad, panning it for instability, but a recent update made it a little better and the folks at Avid contacted me to let me know they will soon have a fix for all the issues I mentioned in my review. I use it now for most of my iPad video editing.
Both iMovie and Avid post to YouTube, which you can then embed in WordPress via the online editor.
Finishing Up
When it comes to the final check before publishing, the WordPress backend works best. The online tool handles grammar and spelling and serves as a place to check that images and video are properly inserted.
Once everything looks good, hit publish and wait for the hits.
Loco deSane
04/20/2012 at 12:09 am
My only beef with Bloggsy is the fact that the iPad spell checking does not work within the app….
Lance
06/15/2012 at 12:51 am
The iPad spell checking works 90% of the time for us. Yes, for some reason 10% of the time the spell checker does not work in the web view. That 10% is enough to make you lose confidence in it. We have reported this to Apple and hopefully they have it fixed in iOS6.
If you have any questions please email us. We like to help info(at)fomola(dot)com.
Cheers,
Lance
Lance
06/15/2012 at 12:57 am
Thank you for writing about Blogsy. Very cool stuff.
A question – I am not sure what you mean by this. “The app also handles YouTube embedding, but it isn’t compatible with every blog.”
Some information – you wrote “The downside is that Blogsy forces users to spend some time learning the complicated interface.” Yes, we have had some people tell us this but we don’t really understand what is complicated about it. Of course, we are the developers so in our thinking it all quite logical. But to help users learn how to use Blogsy and the logic behind it we have created a bunch of how-to videos which can be found in the Settings menu.
If you or any of your readers need help just email us. We love to help – info(at)fomola(dot)com.
Cheers,
Lance
PAWsome Cats
06/24/2012 at 7:23 pm
It’s not complicated at all! I downloaded it yesterday and started blogging right away. Personally, I think the interface is clean and intuitive. However, it has crashed thrice while I was uploading 3 photos for my latest post. I use the Blogger platform.
Lance
06/24/2012 at 7:27 pm
That is very strange. If you are on Blogger then that means you are uploading to Picasa, right? The only regular issues we know of related to uploading are with WordPress and this is caused by issues on the server side and not within Blogsy. If you could email us we’d like to figure out why you are having this problem. info(at)fomola(dot)com.
Thanks,
Lance
Jamie
07/16/2012 at 5:26 am
I love how they have developed blue tooth speakers for ipad use. This has allowed everything to be monitored around the house just by the use of an ipad. In relation to word press i realy struggle to use it I much prefer the other blogging networks.
iphone applicatios
07/26/2012 at 6:22 am
This is a comment.. :)
Jacqui
09/18/2012 at 7:10 am
Blogsy seems great! I have tried the Blogger app, and BlogPress and quite a few others for blogging but none are as gorgeous as Blogsy in terms of layout when it goes live. The other apps had blurry pictures. They were both very basic which meant I had to go online to edit posts via safari – so tiresome.
Now with the photo app you recommended and blogsy I will be blogging 100% from my iPad.
Thanks a lot!
georgie
09/28/2012 at 11:03 am
epic
Iphone apps
11/01/2012 at 4:29 am
I think I’m going to try Pages. It sounds like a decent enough substitute for the WordPress app. Price is a bit steep though. But if it works it works ;-)
iPad MM
11/19/2012 at 3:11 pm
Google Drive is also a good text editor for preparing blog content. I tend to use that or Pages and paste it into WordPress. I also find that I use iPhoto and Skitch a lot for editing images but will have a look at Snapseed. Cheers
Sam
12/27/2012 at 9:47 pm
It’s good to see so many uses of the iPad with different apps! The iPad can also be used to to help kids
smalik
02/08/2013 at 4:34 am
I have taken plenty of photo shots in superbowl and edited them with plethora of built in effects, cool text messages and share with friends on social media with photo splash Fx. Indeed this is awesome app
Find Web Apps
03/28/2013 at 12:40 am
Thanks for the listing, I am using some of these apps you mentioned . There arae tons of apps for ipad which make our life more easier. Check it out to Find Web Apps for your iPad
Roth
04/12/2013 at 7:30 pm
I am looking for more apps I can use for blogging on my newest blog. I believe the iPad can be a powerful blogging tool and this post proves I am right. I will try Pages. :)
stephanie
09/04/2013 at 2:40 am
Also, I can’t say enough good things about ipad. It just feels… perfect… to me. Specially #Download Free Calling App
Home KG
10/01/2013 at 1:04 am
After a long time i like an article for bloggers. I went through with these apps but personally i would say that Blogsy is a an good app.
Imenu global
11/22/2013 at 2:37 am
Thanks for the listing :)
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