Miniature Blogging with iPad and Blogger
I have tried to find a good solution for miniature blogging with iPad and I have to say I am pretty disappointed. I tried the DraftCraft and Blogger apps and Blogger's browser-based version and none of them came even close to the experience with a desktop browser. My setup includes the iPad keyboard dock, which I absolutely demand to be supported for a comfortable writing experience.
In summary, I ended up going back to Blogger's desktop browser based web application. Read more of the reasons below.
DraftCraft
DraftCraft was the only iPad blogging app to have a good rating in the App Store and the reviews in the web were generally favourable. The free version allows ten posts before the user has to buy the paid (though pretty cheap) version. The free version is even ad-free so it does not suck the battery dry with location-aware ads and constant connection.The concept of DraftCraft is based on drafting and letting the posts slowly mature towards publication. The idea is great; I wrote a couple of drafts that I knew were waiting for polishing and more photos to be ready to published.
The biggest problem for me was that the app is locked to landscape orientation and my keyboard dock demands portrait orientation. Therefore I could not use the keyboard to write posts.
My second gripe is about handling photos, which are an absolute must for a craft blog like my miniature blog. It let me use only the iOS photo library (with the horrible photo browser) and not Picasa photos. The fact that the media browser is brain-dead and completely unusable with large photo libraries is of course not any third-party app's fault, but Apple's. To add to the insult, it didn't always add the photo I chose and just closed the photo browser after tapping the photo. It also posts the photos to a different album than Blogger, which is a bit silly. Having all the blog photos in the same album would be nice.
But the real problems started only after publishing. No matter how well I proof read my posts, I will notice more typos, grammar mistakes or other errors after publishing. I couldn't figure out how to edit posts on the Blogger server with DraftCraft. Edits remained local and re-posting created a new post on the blog and I had to use Blogger's web interface to remove the extra post.
I really loved the simplicity and the drafting concept of DraftCraft, but can't live with the shortcomings of the app. Maybe it will become the app it should be after a couple of updates, but right now it's not usable for me.
Blogger app
I managed to write one post with the Blogger app, but I eventually had to edit it in the desktop browser interface. The first issue surfaced already when I was writing the post. The top of the screen includes buttons for saving and publishing posts and while I was writing, they scrolled away from the top and I couldn't scroll back high enough to get them visible again. The only way I could save and publish my post was to remove the iPad from the dock when I was finished and then tap the desired button.Like DraftCraft, Blogger app uses the horrible iOS media browser. Because Blogger and Picasa Web Albums are so nicely tied together, it would be good to be able to post the photos to Picasa Web Albums and link to them in the blog post. After all, the blog photos will end up in Web Albums anyway when the post is submitted, so why not allow it in the first place?
The app also does not allow positioning photos among the text. The photos will appear at the end of the post. When I wanted to discuss two pieces of terrain in one post, it was silly to have the photos appear at the end instead of among the text describing the pieces. And back to the desktop computer to edit.