Beware the WordPress App For iPad

Blogger and website owners take note: the WordPress app for iPad is not your friend! As I mentioned in a previous article, one limitation of the iPad is being unable to publish articles using the WordPress web application with Safari. Quite simply, it doesn't work thanks to photo import limitations and an inability to review articles using the application's visual feature. In the last week, I stumbled upon an even bigger problem. The WordPress app for iPad is supposed to allow users to draft and publish articles on WordPress-created sites, outside of the normal web application. Regrettably, I have experienced a terrible bug using the app. When users save a post or page using the app, strange things can happen. If, for example, you save a post as a LOCAL DRAFT, it sometimes saves the entry as a PUBLISHED post. Since I (and other) bloggers use the LOCAL DRAFT feature as a first step in the publishing process this is most troublesome. Imagine writing a first draft of a post and suddenly seeing it live on your website! Sure, you can delete the post. However, if your posts are tied to automatic Twitter notifications, a problem remains. Instead of clicking on a Twitter link and heading to a site article, readers are left with a "PAGE NOT FOUND" error. This is unacceptable and makes a website look bad. Yet, the problem is actually much worse. Sometimes, LOCAL DRAFT posts are actually published over an existing post! One draft article, for example, on "OBAMA GOES ON VACATION" copies over another article called "SUMMERTIME CONCERT." Again, this is maddening and unacceptable. The only way to recognize this mistake is from reviewing the website, getting angry text messages from your editor, or worse: a reader sends you a nasty comment! Other issues that were found include:

• Autosave created a duplicate entry
• Disappearing meta information like tags (although this may not be just an iPad issue)
• Shows articles in use when they're not, shows wrong status, etc. (iPad and desktop)

My immediate advice is this: avoid the WordPress app for iPad until an update is released. I'll keep our readers informed regarding these bugs, and hopefully soon, it will be addressed by the WordPress team.

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