6 Tools For Better Blogging With An iPad
Like many others, I recently bought an iPad out of curiosity. While my intentions were of discovery, I quickly found some productivity gains with blogging.
The upside to blogging with an iPad is that it’s portable and you can easily log your thoughts on a screen that is a lot more convenient than typing into an iPhone or other smartphone. Also, there are a number of apps to make it honestly simple.
The downside is that even though typing is simpler on a much larger screen, typing on a screen vs. a tactile keyboard still takes some getting used to, even if you’re an iPhone owner. I also found some issues with copy/paste and for web based tools, whatever business that uses Flash is a no-go.
Here are several tips and tools that you can use to become productive more quickly when blogging by an iPad. Each icon links to the app store and this post was written entirely on an iPad.
WordPress App – The free app for WordPress is handy and is of course a very restricted version of the web based version. The advantage of by the app is a simplified view and larger editing area. Vital functions like make, edit and delete of pages, comments and posts is available. If the restricted nature of the app doesn’t work for you, the web based version facility well too, albeit with smaller text and work area.
Bonus tip: Another handy blogging tool for iPad is BlogPress, which now supports updating Twitter & Facebook as well as upload & embedding of YouTube videos.
Dragon Dictation – One very handy workaround awkward typing on the iPad is to use speech to text. I had pretty low expectations of Dragon speech to text software but it’s pretty simple to use. You just speak into the microphone on the iPad and then copy the text from Dragon software over into WordPress or wherever it is that you’re blogging with. There might be a few small edits to make, but I found it to be pretty efficient and pretty accurate. Speech to text saves a lot of time and it’s something you can do when typing isn’t convenient. In fact, most of this post was done with Dragon.
PhotoPad & Built-In Screen Capture – With many blog posts, I capture metaphors as screen grabs and then do some editing to make to order for a particular blog post. iPhones and iPads can easily take a picture of whatever is showed on your screen by holding down the top and bottom buttons at the same time. The image is involuntarily stored to your metaphors folder.
Then I use the free PhotoPad app to open the image and do vital editing. Upload the image by WordPress and you’re all set. Editing options are very restricted and I want to get other recommendations.
Disqus Pro App – We use Disqus to manage comments on Online Marketing Blog, so moderation duties can be handled in part with this app that is made for iPhone, but usable on the iPad.
Echofon Pro – What excellent is writing a fantastic blog post (or dictating one as in our case here) if no one knows you’ve published it? That’s where tools for Twitter and/or Facebook come in. I use Echofon for my Tweeting activities on my iPhone 4 and the iPad. In regards to blog promotion, it’s a quick way to share links to your best posts. There is a Tweetdeck app for iPad too, but I’ve had small luck getting it to work.
Analytics App – If you need a quick fix for top level web stats for your blog and you use Google Analytics, then this app comes in handy. Like the other apps on this list, it’s restricted, but can offer you info on the go.
Will the iPad server as a replacement device for blogging over the laptop? For now I would say no. The restricted features of the iPad apps over their web counterparts means too much switching back and forth between app and browser. But, I do see the iPad providing more convenient access to blogging than a cell phone. If you’re like me and manage a large number of draft posts at any agreed time, being able to end off a post in between watching streaming movies on Netflix or HuluPro can add a slice of productivity to an otherwise all-entertainment device.
There are many other apps for iPad and if you have found some that are particularly useful for blogging, please share in the comments.
Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | 6 Tools For Better Blogging With An iPad | http://www.toprankblog.com