You have to admit, mobile blogging can be quite a chore if you don’t have the proper software running on your mobile device. With an App Store that can go on for days, you would think there would be many great applications for mobile blogging. Sadly, that’s not the case. Choices are limited when picking out decent blogging applications. Today we’re going to take a look at Blogbooster for the iPhone. Diamond in the rough? We’ll see.
When you first open Blogbooster you are greeted with a green splash screen with a rocket shaped like a pencil. If you have set up an account the application would use this splash screen to check for updates on your blog, if there’s no blog configured you will get a blank screen (see image 2). You can start adding blogs. When you press the add account button you will have 7 blog services to choose from, self hosted or remotely hosted. The application supports WordPress (self and remotely hosted), Blogger, Typepad, Tumblr, Windows Live, and Joomla.
Once you have configured your blog account through whichever service you use, you will have the option to sync posts to the iPhone instantly or to do it at a later date. I have found an issue with this method however. I have tried it both ways, if you choose to sync after you add an account, the application will pull the information down from the server and everything will be mostly peachy. However, if you choose not to sync your posts, they will not be synced after you relaunch the application. In theory it is supposed to sync your posts when the application launches, but if you selected the option to sync later, then your posts will not be synced at the next launch, like it’s supposed to.
The editing screen is pretty straight forward. When you go to write a post you just select the blog you want to write a post for, then you are taken to the edit screen. You have to tap to edit the various sections, Title, Tags, and Content. When you select the content area the onscreen keyboard slides up revealing a tool bar at the top.
The tool bar has various functions to try to work as a WYSIWYG editor. There are some icons that we were unsure of at first. I have figured out what they do by guessing around, I think there could be better iconography to illustrate what the buttons are supposed to do. The editor works fairly well, sadly it’s all HTML, much like the stand alone WordPress app for the iPhone. I don’t have an issue with editing HTML if I need to make a tweak here and there, but I feel HTML should be a second option, not the only editing option.
I guess I am a little dumbfounded as to why most of these mobile blogging applications still use HTML as their main editing function. The SquareSpace application doesn’t use HTML in it’s main editor, nor does the Tumblr application. There should be no excuse for such archaic editing systems in my opinion. The iOS platform is so powerful and it is capable of WYSIWYG, so why not use it? Blogbooster is boarder line WYSIWYG, I think they need to go all the way, then this app might truly shine.
The “A” button on the editing bar allows you to add images, either from the iPhone camera, camera roll, or from a hyperlink. The upload window allows you to select and scale the image to the size you desire by using a slide-bar. I wish you could put in a numerical value and have it constrain to the proportions, the slide-bar is nice, but it’s not very accurate. If you have a fixed width like we do here at The Mac Universe, then scaling images is a must, so it would be easier to put in the values and hit go. The upload process is fairly simple, it’ll upload the image with the appropriate title and name if you provide it. However, once you have uploaded an image, there’s no way to go back and make changes. This of course is because the image is in HTML form in the edit menu.
Tagging with Blogbooster should go off without a hitch. Unfortunately we ran into a big issue. When you are selecting tags, Blogbooster will randomly select unwanted and unassociated tags without your consent. This poses a big issue if you use tags the way they are meant to be used. Sparingly and coherently. This is definitely a big bug that needs to be addressed.
Conclusion
While the application is by no means perfect, it’s not all terrible either. The application is fairly robust, easy to configure, and pretty easy to write with. The main issues come when you are formatting your text and adding media. I am sure the tagging issue will be addressed in a future update.
Don’t let us detour you. Download the free version before you make the $2.99 purchase for the full version. The free version is limited to one blog at a time. The full version allows unlimited number of blogs to be added.
