Created by Jason Baptiste, PadPressed is a WordPress plugin that makes any WordPress blog look like a native iPad app when accessed from iPad. PadPressed bestows upon your humble blog the iPad features we’ve come to know and love such as “swipe to advance” articles, touch navigation, accelerometer positioning and home screen icon support when you’re really jonseing for that authentic app feeling.
Baptiste started with WordPress because 8.5% of all websites (including our own) are WordPress, but has grander aspirations, “We did WordPress first because it’s the largest thing there is next we’re doing Tumblr, Posterous, Moveable Type, and then custom CMSs.” Exciting!
We demoed the app and while the sparse interface harkens to the web browser/news aggregator hybrid we’re starting to see more of on the iPad (ala Pulse, and Flipboard) we’ve noticed some issues with its touch functionality.
We had difficulty swiping article pages (you have to press down really hard and the pages tend to flicker) and accessing articles from images. Baptiste says he will address the flickering issue and the touch sensitivity in a minor update, “We don’t want it to be too easy to change, but we will do controls in the future to show how sensitive the touch will be. Right now you have to click on the title in order to access, but these simple things we can change.”
While not yet nearly as fluid and visually breathtaking a way to view content as native apps Flipboard and Pulse, the advantage to PadPressed is that you don’t have to direct readers to download anything. If you aren’t looking to use a prebaked solution Sencha, an HTML-5 based mobile framework is another way to circumvent the app store.
So If you’re a web publisher that wants to optimize your content specifically for the iPad as inexpensively and quickly as possible PadPressed is available now for a $49.95 one time fee which includes any updates to the theme. To try out on an iPad before you buy, you can check out Baptiste’s PadPressed personal blog here.
