Small Society helps build WordPress for iPad
Posted by James Keller on 2 April 2010 @ 10:26 PT
When the iPad was announced in late January, the citizens of Small Society immediately began sketching, coding, building foam-core board likenesses of the device. It was madness. We were stoked. And when we thought we couldn’t get any more excited about the potential of the iPad and our work in building for it, we got a phone call.
At the tail end of February, a couple of us hopped on a plane for San Francisco and headed to the absolutely lovely Automattic offices, home of WordPress, to meet with Matt Mullenweg and Raanan Bar-Cohen. We did a rapid-fire discovery workshop, and left a few hours later, a little bit giddy, but also knowing we were in for a wild ride.
While our usual projects are several months in duration, with a strong, process-focused methodology - we simply didn’t have the luxury of time for this project. Instead, we had just about a month to go from concept to app, with two full time developers (who were both already booked for an extended geek spring break at SXSW), and an existing iPhone code base that would be the basis for a universal app.
It seemed a bit daunting, but who doesn’t love a challenge… and, who doesn’t love WordPress?
One of the most incredible things about this project was the chance to work in an Open Source environment, which could not be more different than working on a marketing focused app for a large corporation. We were to blog our progress, work with a distributed team, and partner with the WordPress community to get things built, debugged and out the door. It was a blast.
Exactly one month after our trip to San Francisco, we submitted to the App Store. We are very proud to announce that right now, this very moment, you can download WordPress for iPad (even though most of us mere mortals won’t be able to see it on a device until tomorrow).
Now, because it was a crazy, quick turnaround, project - it is not a design-rich, feature-heavy application. Instead, we’ve got a sturdy little app that does just what you need it to. As you may expect, it leverages what already existed in the iPhone application, but takes full advantage of the expansive screen size and presents a much more welcoming and compelling way to write.
For what it’s worth, we also think it falls squarely into the mantra that you find on the home page of Automattic.com:
Inspired by you
Striving to create good
Nothing is perfect.
We are thrilled that we were able to work with the whole WordPress team and enable a whole army of bloggers to create and publish from a native app, on their shiny new iPad, from day one. We love writing for software for our friends. Enjoy!
If you want to learn more about WordPress for iPad -
What our friends at WordPress have to say about the project
http://iphone.wordpress.org/2010/04/02/wordpress-iphone-ipad-2-4/)
WordPress for iPhone OS
http://iphone.wordpress.org/
