Until Apple adds copy and paste to the iPhone I couldn’t imagine using it to do any real blogging. A quickly as I have become adept at using its touch screen, qwerty keyboard, it is still not suited to any long form content writing. Short emails or text messages or web searches are fine, but blogging is something I can’t imagine doing from the iPhone.
At least 102,208 people disagree, however. That’s how many people have downloaded the WordPress iPhone application, the company revealed this week. That number covers from the last week in July through the end of August and doesn’t include upgrades.
Though it’s impossible to tell how many people downloaded the application, tried it, and subsequently don’t actually use it, because there are no public engagement stats available for iPhone apps, the number is still mighty impressive. WordPress is a free application so the number of casual installs (vs. active users) is probably higher than for paid applications, but even so, that 100,000 people are interested in blogging from their iPhone is surprising to me.
It’s also great news for Apple. That people are interested in creating long form content like full blog posts from their phone confirms that users are looking at the iPhone as a full computing platform and not just a phone. Validation of the iPhone as a computing platform is a big win for Apple.
As for copy and paste — developer Zac White created an alternative way of implementing it for iPhone developers. WordPress hasn’t signed on to White’s Open Clip framework yet, but hopefully they’re considering it. If they do, I’ll consider their iPhone app.
Josh CatoneBefore joining Jilt, Josh Catone was the Executive Director of Editorial Projects at Mashable, the Lead Writer at ReadWriteWeb, Lead Blogger at SitePoint, and the Community Evangelist at DandyID. On the side, Josh enjoys managing his blog The Fluffington Post.
