The Blogger App: Is It as Bad as the Ratings?

Hello there! It's been a long time since my long hiatus and I have decided to continue writing my blog. Although at first I was put in a dilemma on which platform to use. Should I just continue my Blogspot blog? Or make a new one?

After one eternity later... I decided to revive this blog.

So then I searched the playstore for the Blogger app (I'm an android user). And I was a bit taken aback by the ratings. It's got 3.6 stars with 10+ million downloads. But as they say, "Do not judge a book by its cover", I downloaded the app despite all the warnings.

First Glance

When you open the app, the first thing you'll see is a simple, clean, minimalistic dashboard, where you have your "Published" posts and "Drafts". Next, you'll find the "create post" button in the downright corner. And on the top, you have your blog's name; if you have multiple blogs it will open as a drop-down menu and from there you can switch from one blog to another. BUT, you cannot create a new blog from here. You can only view blogs that you already own. And finally, on the top right corner, you'll see your profile button, where you can see Settings, "View Your Blog", About Blogger, etc.

In the Settings, you'll only find basic settings like your display name, blog's name, URL, and notification and comment settings. So if you want to change your blog's language or add another author to your blog or even favicon, you need to change it from the web version.

 

 

So what's missing?

Well, I guess the right question would be, what's in it? There are a lot of things missing here, I don't even know where to start.

First, you can't see the analytics as well as the comments section, which I think is very important for a blogger. You can't manage your blog's performance like how many views or which post gets the most views. Although for the comments, we can get notified through email, but I just find it inconvenient. Then, we can't preview our post or resize the image that we attach either.. which is sad for me cause sometimes I need to see how my post will look like when I attach multiple images. Do you see how big the above image is? Yes, that's how it's gonna look like.

Next, is the writing tool. Very, very limited, which is a major disappointment. The interface is very "minimalistic", probably even lacking? When you "create post" you will see the box for Title, the post's body and labels. Yes, you can add labels from here (thank goodness). You can add pictures from the camera or gallery. There's bold, italic, underline, and also insert link button. BUT, here's what is disappointing. You can't change the fonts and colour, no strikethrough, no bullet or numbered list, no quoted text thing, and many more...*sigh*

This is what you'll get 

Also, you won't find post settings like location or permalink here. (I've never used it though)

So what are the Pros and Cons?

The pros are:

1. Easy to use, minimalistic interface.

2. Got all the basic writing tools covered. Bold, italic, underline, labels, etc.

3. View and edit multiple blogs that you already own.

The cons are:

1. Can't see comments from here.

2. Can't edit the layouts and change the theme of your blog.

3. Can't manage AdSense.

4. Only basic settings.

5. Limited writing tools (I manually did this numbered list *sigh*).

6. No "Pages" tab. So you can't create or edit your pages.

7. Can't adjust or resize the image that you attach. 

We conclude by saying that this is merely an editing tool, we can't monitor our blog performance.

So, is it worth it?

The answer is, it depends. If you're a blogger who doesn't require all the above-mentioned tools like bullet lists, strikethrough, location tag or even adjusting the size of your image, then this app is for you. Or if you need to jot down ideas for your blog quickly, whenever-wherever, and do the rest on your computer then this is just the right app for you.

But if you're the kind of blogger who does mostly everything from your phone, then this is NOT for you.

So what do you think? Let me know your opinion.