Today, WordPress released a big update to the app for all iOS devices. Most of the bugs are apparently gone, and there are some new features, including a quick photo button for camera-equipped devices, access to stats and support for 10 new languages.

Unfortunately, WordPress’ latest app update is still missing major features that no blogging tool should be without. That means I can’t use it for anything but rough drafts.

It’s inconceivable to me that a blogging tool would lack the ability to create links, but there’s still no easy way to do it in WordPress. Oddly enough, WordPress offers to make a link if you start typing out the HTML tag, but if it’s so easy to drop in the code, why isn’t there a link button specifically for that purpose?

For that matter, the WordPress app offers none of the HTML buttons that you find on the proper website. There are no lists, block quotes, italics, page breaks or strikethroughs, and the lack of spell check is particularly dangerous given the difficulties of using a virtual keyboard. I’d stick with the WordPress website, but it’s too crash-prone to rely on, and it’s not formatted for the iPad.

The last time I wrote this rant, a helpful commenter pointed out BlogPress as an alternative. Indeed, it’s miles ahead of the official WordPress app, complete with HTML tags and the ability to resize images while maintaining proportions, but it has drawbacks of its own. You can’t, for instance, preview exactly how a blog post will look on the web, and I can never get images to nest perfectly in an upper corner as they do in many of our blogs here. There’s no spell checker, either.

If you type as many words per day as I do, writing on the iPad can be a lovely change of pace when monotony sets in. But I’m still waiting for a blogging app that lets me do it all, so I no longer have to retreat to a laptop when the actual writing is complete — as I’ve done just now.

(Update: After posting this, I noticed that the timestamp on the article was all wrong, causing the post to show up out of order. Because I generated the post within the WordPress app, I’m assuming this is a bug with the app or a user error that’s too easy to make. Fixed now.)

Whoever did it pretty much has full access: founder Matt Mullenweg said in a post to the company blog that the hacker has “root” access. In plain English? The WordPress server is this hacker’s oyster, and he or she is free to do whatever they want because they have administrative privileges.

Mullenweg says the company isn’t clear on what exactly may have been revealed and is going over its logs. He guessed they took a look at the source code, parts of which he called “sensitive.” The company is busy securing the server to prevent a repeat, and wouldn’t share much more.

Until we know exactly what happened, its hard to judge the potential effects. If you have an account on the service, and especially a “VIP” account, it may just be a good idea to change your password.

This was largely due to inadequacies with WordPress, the blogging platform we use at Technologizer. I’m a big fan of the platform on PC Web browsers, but the iPad app needs more features, and the Web site can’t access the iPad’s photo album. The release of WordPress 2.6 for iOS adds video and swats bugs, among other things, so I decided to revisit iPad blogging with renewed enthusiasm.

A few minutes playing around with the app was all it took for me to give up once again.

My main gripe with WordPress on the iPad is still the use of HTML instead of rich text. Links, italics, block quotes, bullet points — none of it’s available without a working knowledge of HTML. I’m surprised this update doesn’t even add buttons to insert HTML templates. If you want to link to another story, a practice that is the cornerstone of blogging, you better know your HREFs.

Nonetheless, I was prepared to deal with the issue, as long as I could upload a photo in the size of my liking and post it in the top left-hand corner, as we often do here. Unfortunately, you can’t do that either. Instead of letting you specify a precise pixel count on the images in your photo album, WordPress provides three boilerplate options for size — thumbnail, medium and large — and only “above text” and “below text” for justification. Knowledge of HTML might provide a workaround, but only if you can wade through the jumble of code with your pointer finger.

The last straw was not a missing feature, but a terrifying bug. The new version of WordPress for iPad may improve local draft management, but saving directly to the Web was a disaster. On several occasions, the article I was editing would adopt the headline from another article, causing a momentary panic when I thought I’d accidentally overwritten an earlier blog post. I had to rush onto my laptop to make sure no previous work was ruined, at which point the entire purpose of working on the iPad was lost.

I never even got to try the new video function in WordPress for iPad. It sounds wonderful, but I’ve already made plans to stay far, far away.

In an earlier post, Joe had thought that Microsoft was saying that there are thirty million Spaces bloggers who will be affected by the shutdown and WordPress.com opportunity. It was a logical assumption, and one made by plenty of other folks–on the Windows Live blog, Microsoft honcho Darmesh Mehta had referred to thirty million Spaces “customers” and said they were “eagerly awaiting the next set of new blogging features.” But he didn’t define what a customer was.

As Joe points out in the new post, it turns out that the thirty million “customers” consist not just of bloggers but of  blog readers. Spaces gets thirty million visitors a month, mostly from people who don’t have blogs. There are only seven million active bloggers. And one of the e-mails Joe quotes estimates that only 300,000 of them will wind up on WordPress.com.

Oddly enough, if you were at TechCrunch Disrupt and listening carefully, you already knew that there weren’t thirty million Spaces bloggers. When Mehta announced the news, he tossed around the thirty-million figure. But in response to a question, he clarified that there were only seven million active bloggers. (Here’s proof: When I wrote about the news from my seat at the conference on Monday, I quoted the seven-million figure and didn’t bother to mention the thirty-million one. (The latter number sounded like an exaggeration from the moment I heard it–if thirty million Spaces bloggers moved to WordPress.com, it would triple the number of WordPress.com blogs.)

I remain a tad confused, though. If there are seven million truly active Spaces bloggers and only 300,000 bother to move to WordPress.com, that leaves 6.7 million Spaces bloggers unaccounted for. Some will presumably opt for Blogger or Tumblr or something else other than WordPress.com. Others may be so intimidated by the idea of moving their sites that they’ll give up blogging.

But doesn’t it still sound strange that a Microsoft staffer believes that 96 percent of these theoretically active Spaces bloggers aren’t going to take the most obvious route to continuing their blogs once Spaces is no more?

I suppose that there are some Spaces users who considered using WordPress.com and opted for Microsoft’s service instead, but I suspect they’re far outnumbered by newbies who chose Spaces simply because it’s been the default Windows Live blogging service until now. Overall, it sounds like a good move for everyone involved: Spaces bloggers get an outstanding blog platform that’s evolving rapidly (rather than Spaces, which wasn’t), Microsoft doesn’t have to try and compete in a field that’s not core to its success, and WordPress.com gets lots of new members.

(I cheerfully admit to a bias here, since Technologizer is on WordPress.com–using the VIP version of the service–and I wouldn’t swap it for Spaces or any other blogging platform on the planet.)

Upcoming WordCamps are planned for Cape Town, Manila, Portland, Beijing, Honolulu, Sydney, and a lot of other places–and that’s just for the rest of 2008. If I had enough time and money, I’m sure I’d enjoy attending them all.

If you’re looking to start a blog with a minimum of fuss, I heartily recommend WordPress.com…and if you’re a WordPress user who lives anywhere near a WordCamp, please go. You’ll have a blast and come away smarter, if my experience is any evidence…