WordPress.com Desktop App

Automattic released a WordPress.com app for Mac OS X today. I’ve been using it for some time now during development and it has found a wonderful place into my regular workflow.

Download the WordPress.com OS X app now!

A Feed Reader

I have a love/hate relationship with Feedly. I migrated all of my RSS feeds over to it when Google Reader was axed. For the sites that I truly want to read every single thing that is published out of it, I like it. It’s a good way to have an inbox of posts.

I found myself, though, having plenty of sites that I wanted to read on a regular basis, though I didn’t really care all that much if I missed any particular post. The mental stress of seeing unread counts in Feedly was frustrating me.

The WordPress.com Mac App

The WordPress.com Reader, available on WordPress.com and in the WordPress.com Mac App, was the solution I was looking for. Cross-platform (as it also works in the iOS and Android apps) and providing a stream of posts instead. It is more like Twitter and Facebook—modern consumption—than the more e-mail-based model of Feedly (again, it has uses though and I am still a proud Feedly Pro member).

I’m enjoying the app as a feed reader. I love browser tabs and the WordPress.com Reader in-browser would always get lost in a sea of tabs1.

Site Management Tool

The new WordPress.com management interface, the codebase known as Calypso, I use throughout the day to either check stats or to write or edit blog posts. I’m an old WordPress guy, so wp-admin has a special feeling of home. The app, though, has provided a different vector to adding content to my site. Before the app, I know I could have managed this, as a Jetpack-powered site, via WordPress.com, but once I started typing in a browser’s address bar, wp-admin came out. Old habits and all of that.

The app though has provided a new way for me to think “I need to jot something down”, sometimes a quick draft, or sometimes a full post.

Notification Center

WordPress.com notifications are a big part of my day. Both comments on my own sites, the WordPress.com-powered o2 sites that I’m on for various projects, and all of my work at Automattic. A nice hack for when I need to be head down, mostly, but still need to see notifications come in is either watch the bubble on the dock icon, or resize the app window to just contain the notifications window.

I’m biased…

I know I’m biased. I don’t work directly on the desktop app or the Calypso codebase, but I really enjoy testing out these new ideas to explore what it could become or inspire. The desktop app was, though, the first time I had a release named for me.

The Future

I’m excited to see where this will bring us. With Calypso open-sourced, powering a desktop app, what could other WordPress sites do with this?

For something a bit more concrete though, do sign up for the mailing list to hear more about Windows and Linux versions…

I know, I know. “Pinned tabs” are all the rage to some people. I have a lot of browser windows open too. ↩