WordPress app

I blog almost exclusively using my iPhone. And, as they say, “there’s an app for that.” It’s the WordPress app for iOS, the iPhone’s operating system.

According to WordPress you can “manage your WordPress blog right from your iOS device: create and edit posts and pages, upload your favorite photos and videos, view stats and reply to comments.”

For the most part, all that is true. I use the WordPress iOS app to meet most of my blogging needs, especially the reader, where I can go visit the blogs of the other bloggers I am following.

However, I noticed recently that, when I came across some posts from other bloggers that I thought were particularly reblog-worthy and I pressed the Reblog button on these posts, nothing happened.So I reached out to the Happiness Engineers to tell them that my Reblog button wasn’t working. After explaining in detail the steps I was following and attaching the requested screenshots, I finally heard back. Here is what they told me:

“The view option in the reader was intended to be a way to view a post as it would appear in a browser, but was not intended to be used as a web browser. Simulating web browsers like this is resource intensive and so we recently made some changes to make some of these buttons less functional. If you want to be able to use the reblog button, for now I would suggest going to your posts in a web browser and clicking on it there.

“I have been chatting with my developers about how this change is affecting the work flow of the users and we are looking for other options to improve these changes. I will add this concern to the conversation. Thanks for letting us know.”

Seriously? The brilliant, “customer-focused” minds at WordPress decided to make some features in the WordPress app “less functional”? WTF, WordPress?

Check your spam folder, please.

On an entirely unrelated note, at least a half a dozen of you have mentioned that my comments have ended up in your spam folders. Maybe the Happinesses Engineers are tired of hearing from me and this is their way of retaliating. But you may want to check your spam folders regularly — I check mine daily — to see if you’re missing any legitimate comments they may have been inadvertently swept up in the Akismet net.

Some of you are aware that I use my iPhone for blogging. I have the iOS WordPress app, which I use for reading and responding to comments on my posts and for reading what other bloggers I follow have posted and for commenting on their posts .

But for writing my posts I use my iPhone’s Safari browser to log onto WordPress because it’s easier to use for composing posts than the WordPress app for iOS editor. And it gives me a real-time word counter, which comes in handy for prompts with word limits.

Why my iPhone and not my laptop? I do it because I can read, comment, and post from anywhere. My bed, my living room, the dining room, my backyard, on a bus, at the park. And, if I do say so myself, I have become quite adept at using my iPhone’s virtual keypad.

Anyway, a few days ago I downloaded iOS 12, the latest iPhone operating system, to my iPhone. I have found a few quirky things (i.e., bugs), which I’m sure (hope) will be addressed in iOS 12.1. But one of the new features on iOS 12 is something called “Screen Time.” It keeps track of how much time you spend on your iPhone and how you’re spending that time.

Out of curiosity, last night before I went to bed, I checked Screen Time. And I’ll be honest with you, what I saw shocked me.Of the 17 hours I was awake yesterday (from 6 am to 11 pm), I spent 10½ using my iPhone. And of those 10½ hours, I spent 6¾ hours blogging — either reading, commenting, responding to comments, or posting.

In other words, I spent 61% of my waking hours on my iPhone, which is just nuts. But of those 10½ hours, I spent on my iPhone, nearly two-thirds of it was spent related to blogging.

I’ve been awake so far today for 2½ hours. That time includes taking a shower, getting dressed, fixing and eating breakfast and reading the newspaper. And yet, of that 2½ hours, I spent 1½ hours on my iPhone, one hour and 20 minutes of which were spent on WordPress.

I think I need to rethink how I’m spending my time.