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You guessed, it will be iPhone and iPad compatible too, but that’s not everything new in Blogium. Last month I’ve spent working on pretty boring projects in SAKIDEAMSHENI (next SIM) and 63BITS, so I need to take a break in boring projects and work on something interesting — Blogium and an iPhone game we are working on in SIM, but that’s another story. In this article I’ll focus on Blogium 2.

First things first, Blogium 2 will be an free update for current Blogium users as I promised it year ago, when first version was introduced. It will replace previous all-togather. Even tho it’s free update, I’m rewriting it from scratch to make some new features possible, like syncing and rich text format editor, which in my opinion will look absolutely amazing on iPad. So let’s have a look on main features I’m planing to implement in Blogium 2.

Syncing

Due many requests on my Blogium support mailbox, I’ve decide to make Blogium 2 sync-able with internet on demand, that means it will work offline too and then do the syncing stuff to publish (or edit/delete) on Blogspot servers your posts and comments. It will be very useful while traveling where no cellular signal is available or on iPads with Wi-Fi only. You could easily compose you blog-post with text and media wherever you are and sync your offline content when any kind of internet is available.

Rich Text and Media

Current blogium does support rich text, but it’s available only if have basic knowledge of HTML, even tho many blogger do know how to make text bold it’s not a way even I’d enjoy while typing. It’s too geeky, too non-Apple way to do some text formatting. Correct way of doing that would be a simple rich text editor just like in Apple Pages, or Microsoft Word, but not as complex and functional. Simple set of tools like bold, italic, underline, alignment and color would be enough.

I still do not know how to handle editing posts because I’m pretty sure some of them will be with weird formatting, maybe I’ll strip them from styles? maybe I’ll try to adopt them to only available styles? I do not know yet, your comments and suggestions would be great.

Multiple photo and video attachments will be also new in Blogium 2, I’ll try to embed those features into rich text editor to make photos and videos able to fit between paragraphs and you custom defined places.

Some Nerdelicious Stuff

In current Blogium I’m using GData Objective-C wrapper which is available on Google code, which I do not like at all. It’s pretty awkward from the coding side of view. I’ll try to improve it or white my own.

Rich text editor is a tricky one, it could easily be a separate project. I’m currently learning and digging into CoreText and some other methodologies to develop solid, properly working rich text editor that will work good on iPad and even on iPhone.

Blogium 2 will have same binary for iPhone and iPad, it means if you purchase iPad version you’ll automatically will get iPhone version for free and vice-versa. Sure, iPad version will be a bit powerful and comfortable then his little brother but that’s the point of iPad, isn’t it?

Pricing and Availability

If everything will go according to plan and I’ll write Blogium 2 with all those features above, it will cost $9.99 both for iPhone and iPad as long they are one binary and same file. But here is something really good for you, if you purchase current Blogium for $1.99 you will get Blogium 2 as a free update, so this is your chance to get it at its 25% of price.

I’ll post major updates about Blogium 2 development here, on this blog under this category called “Blogium for iPhone”.

Blogium 2 will be available in mid or late spring 2010.