Zombie apps... they're a real thing. Just last night I was at an event and this fella was talking about an 'app' he developed back in 2011 for the web that he hasn't updated any new features or UI in all that time (some of the code had to change), but for the most part has stayed unchanged because that was the way that those clients who pay for it like it.
Boggled my mind.
Then I got a reminder that something still existed that I had long since written off. The Blogger app for Android.
Now, I know most of you are like "wait, blogger is still a thing?" Yes, yes it is. I still have this site running on it (okay, fine, poke fun all you like, I just love my Google-y products). But for years there hasn't been an Android app.
Well, there was, but it was terrible. It hadn't changed since the Gingerbread era (black and orange UI... ick) and it crashed non-stop. You couldn't post, you couldn't upload a photo, it was terrible. Nobody used it.
Then yesterday, in ironic fashion to the fella with his 8 year old unchanged app, Blogger rose from the grave (ooh, is this a Hallowe'en prank?) and had an update that we have not seen in over 3 years.
Blogger now has an update and it looks all Material style.
(note there is no iOS version)
I'm pretty excited... my hopes aren't going to jump up, I've seen updates like back in 2016 where it was a minor back end thing that didn't fix anything.
This thing hasn't worked in years, so why would that change now?
I update the app, and the screenshots look clean... not ugly.
Can it be usable?
It can.
You're met with a nice clean screen to log in to your Blogger account.
Sign in and you see your main blog firstly, if you tap the title of the blog in the top left you can select your others (it's not super intuitive that that's an element there).
You also see all your articles in card format going down.
Now, there's no other information than just those dates and times and if you wanted to share that article somehow.
There's also the option to hit the 'pencil' to start a new article.
The interface is nice and clean. You have some basic markup (bold, underline and italics), but you can't do links, and GIFs don't show animated.
Once finished you can enter your labels (it won't autofill to your set labels already in use) and hit publish.
And lo' and behold, it'll show up on your site.
Wow! It works. It's not great, but it works.
It's still missing a lot of the main features I use it for like links, or image layout (you can only put it in the body) or even include things like youtube etc... You can't share something TO the app (was hoping I could upload a Youtube and then share that to Blogger), so it's just bare bones for now.
But, it's not dead so that's a plus for me!
Boggled my mind.
Now, I know most of you are like "wait, blogger is still a thing?" Yes, yes it is. I still have this site running on it (okay, fine, poke fun all you like, I just love my Google-y products). But for years there hasn't been an Android app.
Well, there was, but it was terrible. It hadn't changed since the Gingerbread era (black and orange UI... ick) and it crashed non-stop. You couldn't post, you couldn't upload a photo, it was terrible. Nobody used it.
Then yesterday, in ironic fashion to the fella with his 8 year old unchanged app, Blogger rose from the grave (ooh, is this a Hallowe'en prank?) and had an update that we have not seen in over 3 years.Blogger now has an update and it looks all Material style.
(note there is no iOS version)
I'm pretty excited... my hopes aren't going to jump up, I've seen updates like back in 2016 where it was a minor back end thing that didn't fix anything.
This thing hasn't worked in years, so why would that change now?
I update the app, and the screenshots look clean... not ugly.Can it be usable?
It can.
You're met with a nice clean screen to log in to your Blogger account.
Sign in and you see your main blog firstly, if you tap the title of the blog in the top left you can select your others (it's not super intuitive that that's an element there).
You also see all your articles in card format going down.Now, there's no other information than just those dates and times and if you wanted to share that article somehow.
There's also the option to hit the 'pencil' to start a new article.
The interface is nice and clean. You have some basic markup (bold, underline and italics), but you can't do links, and GIFs don't show animated.Once finished you can enter your labels (it won't autofill to your set labels already in use) and hit publish.
And lo' and behold, it'll show up on your site.
Wow! It works. It's not great, but it works.
It's still missing a lot of the main features I use it for like links, or image layout (you can only put it in the body) or even include things like youtube etc... You can't share something TO the app (was hoping I could upload a Youtube and then share that to Blogger), so it's just bare bones for now.
But, it's not dead so that's a plus for me!