Poster, the perfect app for blogging from your iPhone or iPad

If you’re anything like me, you’ve long wondered why there is no sensible iOS app for publishing new posts to your WordPress blog. Well wonder no more, because today I discovered Poster, and it’s brilliant.

Poster is so much better than WordPress’ own app. Developed by one-man outfit, Tom Witkin, not only does it look fantastic, it includes a whole host of features that allow you to manage your blog as if you were on an actual, real-life computer.

You can read about Poster’s features on its spiffy website, but I’ll tell you a couple of reasons why I like it so much.

Custom fields

There have been a few iterations of this site and most of them have used WordPress’ custom fields for one reason or another. They were esential when I published link posts, for example. I suspect many of you have blogs that use custom fields too.

The problem with custom fields is that they are rarely supported in any blogging application, mobile or otherwise. Generally, you have to go through your typical WordPress admin area if you want to publish something that requires a custom field. It’s a complete faff.

Poster supports custom fields. If you want to publish from your iPhone or iPad using custom fields, you can. This is excellent.

Dropbox integration

When I write on one of my trusty iOS devices, I like to do so in Byword, which stores my documents as plain text files in Dropbox. Well, Poster kindly hooks up with Dropbox and allows you to choose one of those files and turn it into a new post.

This replicates what I imagine most people do on their desktops. You write in one app and use WordPress or something like MarsEdit to do the actual publishing. It makes sense and helps you keep your files all neat and tidy.

To be able to do this on your mobile device is very handy indeed.

TextExpander integration

I use TextExpander a lot, but not all iOS apps support it. Of course, Poster does and it’s so, so helpful. I recently wrote about TextExpander and how it can help speed up your writing. That’s a good place to start if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

Post formats

Finally, if you have a blog that uses WordPress’ post formats functionality, you’re in luck. Like custom fields, post formats aren’t supported by other iOS blogging apps, and yet many people rely on them for blogging.

I only use post formats occasionally, for video and gallery posts. However, knowing that I don’t need to go through my WordPress dashboard to publish them is totally brillopads.

And much more…

There’s loads more to Poster that I’m sure you’ll find useful. Effecitvely, it makes publishing to your WordPress blog only possible via your iPhone or iPad, but actually quite enjoyable.

For more information and to find out how to get your mitts on it, head to the official page for Poster on Tom Witkin’s website.