Best tablet and workflow for blogging
May 13, 2013 8:57 AM   Subscribe

I would like to purchase a tablet so I can do more blogging without lugging a laptop around. What are the best tools/apps/workflow tips to be able to do this without tearing my hair out? Special snowflake stuff inside.

Here are my snowflakey specs:
  • I blog using self-hosted Wordpress, and I can do basic maintenance on it myself.
  • I already have a Bluetooth keyboard I like, and that works with both iOS and Android.
  • I currently have an iPhone 4S and my husband has a Nexus 7 tablet I can experiment on.
  • I'm leaning towards an Android tablet because there are more options at various price points (read: cheaper).
  • A 7 inch tablet is ideal - will fit in my purse with the keyboard and all my other purse stuff.
  • I would love to be able to insert Flickr/Instagram pictures easily, but the more I search, the more I see that this isn't really done outside of the iPad-only Blogsy app. That app looks like what I'd like to use, but I can't justify spending so much more on an iPad (with all new connectors/accessories) on the basis of one app that may or may not stick around.
  • I am reasonably comfortable with HTML. I just think it's ridiculously difficult to insert Flickr images into the WordPress mobile app.
  • I have and use both Dropbox and Evernote. I know that Evernote works in rich text and can cause unusual formatting when exporting to Wordpress. Should I consider a plain text editor and work in Markdown? (I've never worked that way before, but it looks easy to learn.)
  • I have no problem paying for apps if they're worth the money.
  • Outside of blogging, I would be using this tablet mostly for various social media (Twitter/FB/Pinterest) as well as reading web stuff from Pocket and ebooks via Kobo/my local library. I'm not a big gamer, but I'd probably watch occasional videos on it too
  • I'm in Canada if that affects any tools/toys I can purchase.
  • I'm willing to wait if the Next Big Thing is worth it. (I need to save my pennies too!)
How do you make blogging on a tablet work for you? What's your workflow? Thanks!
posted by melissa to Computers & Internet (6 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Posts App looks pretty cool.

Frederico at Mac Stories does a ton of blogging from his iPad. You can read up on some stuff here (warning lots of technical details, but it shows a lot of the power he gets out of his ipad):

Automation IOS - How Pythonista changed my life.

A search on that site for IOS Automation will probably be worth a look.

Markdown is awesome - learn it!
posted by backwards guitar at 10:12 AM on May 13, 2013


I know that for iOS and, I believe, for Android, there's a Wordpress app that you can use for your self-hosted site, so that may be worth looking into just to look at, and it's free.
posted by mephron at 12:13 PM on May 13, 2013


Response by poster: backwards guitar: That was an interesting read. I'm not so sure I want to get into Python stuff right now, but it's fascinating to see what's possible.

mephron: I do have and use the Wordpress app on my phone (which I meant to mention on my list). It's a lot better than it used to be (it used to crash on me a lot), but I find it frustrating to insert pictures from my Flickr account because of all the switching between apps.

I also like the idea of writing my drafts away from WP so I have them backed up somewhere else. I like how Evernote works for that, but I don't want to send stuff with extra HTML to WordPress.

On iOS, I'm very intrigued by Drafts since it seems that I can type in that (and use Markdown) then send it multiple places afterward. So I could type there, send it to Evernote for saving, and send to WordPress for publishing. I haven't found an equivalent Android app that does that yet. It doesn't solve my image inserting issue, but I think I may have to let that feature go if I want to go Android.
posted by melissa at 12:34 PM on May 13, 2013


I do a lot of blogging via WordPress on a 7" Android.

The best text editor I have tried is Qute. I also downloaded the OI File Manager because they work hand in hand.

I also have some issues when inserting pics and then typing because it seems to not auto add html formatting, so I wind up either posting just the pics and then unpublishing by saving as draft so I can write or hand typing the paragraph breaks, etc, as I go. This isn't a big issue if I want to say something brief.

I am wondering if you can download pics from flicker and then hit "share" and select the WP app instead of inserting from flicker. Or if there is embeddable code somewhere on flicker that you could copy and paste.
posted by Michele in California at 1:08 PM on May 13, 2013


Response by poster: There is embeddable code on Flickr's site, but you need to go to the standard site to get it. (After all the work they did on the iPhone version of the Flickr app, I''m not sure why they made blogging those pictures such an ornery process.)

Will look into Qute - thanks!
posted by melissa at 3:20 PM on May 13, 2013


I imagine on the tiny screen of a phone, the regular Flicker site is a nightmare. I suggest you try it on your husband's Nexus. Some websites work just fine on 7" Android. A lot of the issues I was having online disappeared when I switched to the Dolphin browser.
posted by Michele in California at 3:27 PM on May 13, 2013


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