Nokia releases open-source WordPress blogging app for Symbian

With millions of bloggers and publishers using what is probably the most advanced blogging platform, WordPress, these users definitely want the option of being able to manage their web properties on the go through their smartphone.

Automattic Inc., the company behind WordPress, has already made available official mobile clients for BlackBerry, Google Android, and Apple iOS devices like iPhone, allowing those users to manage their blogs from those devices.

Nokia users previously did not have an extensive client, until now, when the company announced the availability of an open-source mobile WordPress blogging application for its Symbian powered smartphones.

 The new blogging app allows blog owners to manage their blogs on the go directly from their Nokia smartphone, including support for hosted blogs offered through WordPress, or self hosted blogs.

Users could create and edit blog posts and pages with text formatting functions, manage comments, and get site usage statistics, among other features, directly from their Nokia handset.

Developers more often choose to develop applications for other mobile platforms that offer a superior user experience, but with millions of WordPress users, and equivalently millions of Nokia Symbian users, Nokia decided to go ahead and develop an app directly for its own platform.

The WordPress app is now available for free in the company’s Ovi app store, and actually offers more features, such as statistics, compared to the official clients developed by Automattic.

The current version supports websites using WordPress 2.7, and is not compatible with Symbian3 devices.

Nokia has also launched a developers web site for users to download source codes, modules, and other resources to help contribute to the project.

Apple truly revolutionized applications on mobile devices with its App Store that firstly debuted on the iPhone.
With developers widely embracing the idea of developing apps to net significant earnings helped propel Apple’s app store to over 300,000 available applications for its platform.

As consumers now weigh the availability of applications on their mobile device as a primary factor in their purchasing decision, the result left competitors scrambling to develop their own application stores to make more apps available on their platforms.

The Waterloo-based maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, Research In Motion, even offered developers who get their apps approved in the company’s App World application store a free PlayBook, the company’s yet to be released tablet computer that is expected to retail for about $1,000.