wordpress

WordPress, the popular open-source blogging app, has also been bumped to version 2.0 tonight as well. The difference here is unlike Twitter, WordPress did not get a magical alteration.

It surely has been a while, WordPress. We last covered the blogging app for Windows Phone back in October last year when the official offering hit version 1.4. The WordPress team has since released a number of updates, and as of yesterday we're now at 1.7.

Enabling bloggers who own Windows Phones to connect, manage and create articles on WordPress installations, the app is a must-have for those who require convenient access to their websites. So what's new?

The official WordPress app for our phones has also got a Mango makeover with v1.3. Considering how huge WordPress is to the blogosphere, it's always great to see a well done official app out there for our users. The app hit v1.2 only in August, where it finally received landscape support. Now v1.3 looks to extend that by adding some Mango features. Besides the automatic fast-app switching, users can look forward to these new additions:

"Now with Mango support! You can now share pictures directly from your photo album to a new post in the app, as well as pin your blog to the start screen for quick access."

Sounds good to us. Now we have received a complaint from reader ron_from_RIFAS that it looks like the app has been pulled from the Marketplace. And indeed, if you search for the app, you'll be hard pressed to find it. Even the WP7Applist site has its red-banner warning that this app is not available. But we assure you it is there and you can download and install it just fine. Reason? It's listed as "Private" in the Web Marketplace. Why? We have no idea...

Update: Evidently the developer, in comments, lets us know that there's a bug in v1.3 so to hold off until a fix is released: "It's marked private because we found a large bug in the app and wanted to submit a fix for it before publishing. ...The new one should be out in a few days pending certification from Microsoft."

The official WordPress for Windows Phone app has been updated to version 1.2, which brings landscape editing/posting and some UI improvements. The panorama view has been updated to present more information on screen to tie in better with Metro UI standards. Also included in the update are the following language translations: French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Some under-the-hood changes:

• Better support for post ping backs in the comment view.
• Fixed comment submission date from being changed when moderating.
• Preview now works for drafts, scheduled and private posts/pages.
• Prompt added if the back button is accidentally tapped while creating a post.

Read up more over at the WordPress development blog.