Let me guess. You spend your entire day sitting behind your laptop in a nice quiet office with a fresh cup of coffee close at hand. There are no distractions and you have plenty of time to focus solely on the blog article you’re writing this week. Maybe you’ll even have time left over to start planning your next article or getting a jump on your taxes.
Yeah, right! The idea of staying in one place and getting all your work done in one sitting went the way of the Dodo at about the same time the first beeper showed up. Mobile computing has changed the way we think about the work we do and where we do it. Sure, schedules have gotten a lot more hectic but all this moving around with our smartphones, laptops, and tablets gives us the opportunity to become richer, more experienced people with more to offer our coworkers and customers. If the only thing I ever saw every day was the same four walls I wouldn’t have much to draw on for inspiration. Working outside the office occasionally gives me perspectives I might not normally have.
Taking WordPress With You
Taking WordPress With YouThat all sounds great. But what’s the reality of getting real work done when we’re not sitting comfortably at a desk? Truth is, it’s not always easy. But there are things that can make it simpler. Smartphones and tablets have led the charge in this revolution. By now I’m sure you’re an avid user of apps for things like Facebook and Twitter. But did you know there’s also an app for your blog? Yup! There’s a WordPress mobile app that lets you manage many of the features of your site right from an iOS (iPhone, iPad, etc.) or Android device. Not only can you write or edit posts and pages, but you can manage comments, upload images into articles, get site stats (with the Jetpack plugin – contact me for info on installing and configuring this plugin), and control several other WordPress features. I even wrote some ( not all 😕 ) of this article on my iPhone.
Don’t Throw Out Your Laptop
Don’t Throw Out Your LaptopNow, like most apps, the WordPress mobile app is not a full-featured replacement to your regular computer. And unless you’re 17 years old, typing a 500-word article on a smartphone can be pretty tedious. But having the ability to at least start a draft or make some quick edits to your website without firing up your computer can be pretty liberating. And if you’re one of those people that spends a lot of time at trade shows, conferences, or any other type of scheduled event, being able to write and publish a blog article while still attending the event is a pretty neat trick!
Both the iOS and Android versions are free and available in their respective stores. If you’ve got a smartphone and your site runs on WordPress it’s kind of a no-brainer to get the app. Even if you just keep it around to make an emergency edit to an article when someone points out a typo. Just beware that if you upload a photo by using the +Photo button on the lower-left of the dashboard, it’ll automatically post a new blog article of the image when you publish it. Not exactly what most of us would want, I think. I’d prefer it if it just went into my media library for later use. But I’m sure future versions will offer more and better features. Stay tuned!