Well, I’ve had my iPad for about two weeks now and I thought I would see what happens to my voice dictation when I’m recording using an application called “Dragon Dictation” to automatically go from voice to text. That first sentence was entered into this blog posting using the dictation mode and then editing a few of the words as I went forward. I would start by hitting the recording button and then I would stop that after one or two sentences and go to keyboard mode and place periods and punctuation marks as required. It actually worked pretty good except I know that I would pause (with rather long pauses) and try to gather my thoughts together. I think part of the problem with dictation, it’s hard to keep your thoughts running along in a progressive manner which makes what you want to say sound logical. Keep in mind you can not dictate directly into WordPress. You must first use the app to do your dictation note, then copy from the app to WordPress.
I started off this sentence by saying, “new paragraph” to see what would happen. I also added the word “period.” Believe it or not it got the word period correct to add a period (.).
From here forward I started typing on the iPad keyboard. In any case this was a test of the free “Dragon Dictation” iPad app, blogging in WordPress (WordPress also has a free iPad app), using the keyboard, using the free iPad app “Terra” browser, copy, paste, fine keyboard edits, and scrolling in the WordPress edit window (tip: use two fingers, close together, to scroll in a division or text box inside a web page).
One of the nice features with Terra browser (unlike Safari), is you can have multiple tabs open at the same time. This makes it quite convenient to go from one tab to the other. Right now, I probably have a dozen or so tabs open.
I did notice that WordPress doesn’t seem to display properly in the “Visual” mode, but it does seem to display semi-properly in the HTML edit mode. What happens as this article got longer, WP edit window would run down longer and longer, to the point you would have to scroll up the entire page to see the editing tools at the top of the WP edit window. Maybe this has to do with the default number of lines in the editor.
The issue with the visual edit mode is that the editor goes wider than it naturally should. It goes behind the right column items. I suspect that is because this version of WP wasn’t exactly designed around the iPad. However, I certainly could see the iPad used to quickly gather your thoughts in more ways than one. The free WordPress app doesn’t have those same issues with the display mode. I’ve tested the WP app a little, but until I use the WordPress app to write a compete blog posting, I won’t be able to give you the details of how well that app works.
It seems that the more you type on the iPad, the more proficient you become at using the virtual keyboard. Note that there are portable Bluetooth keyboard options available through third party manufacturers that could make things go a lot faster. That would probably be a good idea if you were to use the iPad as your main input device. With the long battery life, and the portability of the iPad, I think it is a really cool device for doing some amazing things.
I have downloaded a ton of free apps already. Some of my free apps are: Compass HD, Planets, Google Earth, Pandora radio, Craigslist app, ABC player, HBO GO, Netflix, XFINITY TV, Google Books, Kindle, Free WiFi, KNBR, WordPress, a bunch of free games apps, several free browsers (I really like the Terra browser app), Dragon Dictation, NASA, Weather apps, Calculator Pro, Logos, and others.
The iPad that I have is the 64 GB, Verizon 3G version. I have used it both in WiFi and 3G modes. I have to say I really like having access to the web with Verizon, no matter where I am located at the time. The iPad is great for business and personal use.
Well, that is just a short overview about using the Apple iPad to write a blog posting in WordPress.
PS. I did not cheat when I wrote this blog post. Everything in this posting was done from start to finish with the iPad. I even used the add link hyperlink to my signature “Jim” with the WordPress editor and also copied the video link and YouTube embed code for posting the video at the top of this article. Though, I have to admit that it took me some time to figure out where the YouTube code was hidden.
Note the YouTube site knows you are using an iPad browser, so it brings a slightly different user experience. I had to change the settings in the Terra browser to make YouTube think I was using Firefox so I could get to the embed code. Google’s engineers need to think through that YouTube embed video code into a blog posting process a little more.