At the start of a new year, its nice to take a look back over the previous year and reflect on where we’ve been. Twenty thirteen saw a lot of changes and improvements in the WordPress apps. Let’s look at some of them.
WordPress for iOS
WPiOS saw five major updates and several minor releases in 2013.
- We added a Jetpack Notifications screen.
- The ability to preview your drafts was added.
- The first time / new user experience was redesigned.
- We removed the old hybrid reader and replaced it with a native version.
- The app got a UI refresh for iOS 7 and matching styles for MP6.
We welcomed contributions from Pivotal Labs, and we’re looking forward their great work on Themes and Media features being available in the app early 2014.
We ended the year with the release of 3.8.6, our final release supporting iOS 6, and we’re all anxiously awaiting the planned late January release of 3.9 bringing a newly revamped tabbed UI and lots of other improvements.
WordPress for Android
WPAndroid saw three major updates over the year.
- We kicked the old UI to the curb and modernized the app with a Android Holo theme, menu drawer and action bar.
- Jetpack Notifications were added.
- Version 2.5 was our biggest release of the year bringing multiple new features including: Media, Galleries, Themes, Pin Lock and Native Stats!
There were many minor updates but two of note were
Pivotal Labs also chipped in on the Android app with the Themes, Stats, and Media features.
We’re ready to kick off 2014 with the release of version 2.6 later this month. 2.6 will bring a native reader and many other improvements.
WordPress for Windows Phone
WPWinPhone was not forgotten in 2013. It saw four major updates adding support for:
- featured images
- galleries and Dashboard access
- push notifications and a rich text editor
- gallery support for self-hosted sites
Github
Last year we saw the iOS and Android projects migrate away from subversion for source control, and embrace git. Github is now the official home of the WordPress for iOS and WordPress for Android projects.
GSoC Projects
This year we mentored two students, Daniele Maio (@b0unc3) and Sayak Sarkar (@sayaksarkar) for Google Summer of Code. They worked hard over the summer on a native app project for BlackBerry OS10, and another for Firefox OS.
Mobile Handbook
We’re very happy to have a Mobile Handbook to help developers get started working with our open source apps. Many thanks to @rachel_mccollin for her time editing and proofing the articles.
Lots of contributors
This year we saw a lot of people from the wider WordPress and mobile community get involved by helping us test beta versions of the apps, file issues on Github, and best of all, submitted patches for bugs and new features!
Get involved!
Twenty fourteen is going to be a great year. We have lots of great things planned for the mobile apps and we’d love for you to be a part of the experience. Its easy to get involved! Come chat with us in the #wordpress-mobile channel on freenode.net, clone a copy of the source code and send us a pull request, or just leave a comment on our blog.