Using WordPress On Your iPhone With The WordPress App

If you think that to manage your WordPress you need to a computer, you are wrong. Nowadays you can manage your WordPress with your smartphone thanks to the WordPress app for iOS and Android.

Let’s see in this article how the WordPress app for iOS works and the features it provides.

How to Connect Your WordPress to The WordPress App

The first thing you need is to download the WordPress app for iPhone from the App Store and install it on your smartphone. When you open it the first time there are several ways to connect your WordPress.

You can use a WordPress.com account if your website is hosted on that platform or just type the URL of your self-managed WordPress site, which is what I have done here.

Keep in mind that typing the URL is the most hidden option among the possible ones. Instead of a button, you see a link under the three main buttons, as you can see in the second screenshot above.

Once you type the URL of your WordPress, you will be asked for the username and password of your WordPress user to be able to finish setting everything up. As you can see in the last screenshot above, your user and the website you have connected both appear in the app as the final step. Then, you can connect another website or go directly to see this one you just connected (by tapping on it).

What the WordPress App Allows You to do

When you access one of your sites connected with the WordPress app you’ll get the same view that appears in the second screenshot below. From the WordPress app you can publish posts and pages, upload images to the media library, and even manage the comments that your blog receives.

To access the statistics you need Jetpack installed on your WordPress, which among other things adds analytics to your site. That said, if you use Google Analytics or any other web analytics tool, this section of the app will not be very useful.

With the WordPress app for iPhone you can modify very few settings of your website. But that is good. To change settings better do it with a computer with a bigger screen so that the odds of breaking something will decrease.

In the “Media” section, you’ll find the media library, from where you can see the images that are uploaded in your WordPress, edit some attributes of these images, or even upload images from the photo albums of your phone. If you are writing content with the WordPress app for iPhone, being able to upload photos from your phone is a great win.

Remember that the images on your phone may be too large to upload to your WordPress. Try to process them before to reduce their size and weight so that they do not increase the loading time of your WordPress.

Regarding the posts of your blog and the pages of your website, from the WordPress app you can manage them and create new ones.

One aspect that I found very useful in the app is the ability of managing comments. If you moderate your comments in your WordPress, with the WordPress app for iPhone you can approve the comments that come to your website directly from your phone.

Editing Content With The WordPress App

In terms of content editing, the WordPress app still lacks some features. But if your content is basic, with only text and images, this app allows you to do everything you need.

Nevertheless, the block editor within the WordPress app for iPhone still has a long way to go. There are many WordPress core blocks that are not supported. And if you use custom blocks, they won’t work for you in the app either.

For advanced editing tasks using plugins or filling in metaboxes –something very common in WordPress nowadays– the WordPress app is not the right tool. But still you can change the status of posts, schedule them or even change their permalinks and excerpts.

For many WordPress users, the features provided by the WordPress app for iPhone are more than enough.

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Additional Settings And Other Sections

The WordPress app has several settings. In the privacy section you can deactivate the sharing of information about your use of the app, which is active by default.

You can also contact support services or even change the icon of the app itself for a different one to choose from a list of variants.

In the “Reader” section of the app you have a feed with relevant content for you that can help you discover what others are publishing. Finally, to have notifications in the app you need to install Jetpack, as it was the case for analytics.

Final Thoughts

The WordPress app for iPhone is a good alternative if you want to be able to continue generating content on your website and managing very basic aspects in situations where you don’t have a personal computer at hand. However, it is not as complete, by far, as the WordPress dashboard you already know.

In my opinion, it is interesting that this app exists, since it contributes a lot to the WordPress philosophy of democratizing publishing. Anyone with a smartphone can now have a website and manage it easily.

Something that surprised me a bit is that the app is uploaded to the App Store by Automattic and not by the WordPress Foundation. I don’t know the reason for this.

Similarly, the relevance that is given to WordPress.com and Jetpack within the app is very high to be an open source project within Make WordPress, mostly created by the community.

It was weird to me the option to connect a regular WordPress site being less prominent than connecting a WordPress.com site. I guess it’s because the app’s target user is not the one with a self-managed WordPress, but one coming from WordPress.com.

To conclude, I encourage you to use this app if you are not always close to your personal computer. Download it and give it a try. And don’t forget to comment down below telling your experience with the app.

Featured image by Arnel Hasanovic on Unsplash.