Google finally launches a Blogger app for Android

Google develops the Android operating system. Google runs the Blogger service which lets anyone create and manage a blog. You’d think that the company would have released a mobile app for Blogger, oh, I don’t know… a few years ago. But nope. The company finally got around to launching a Blogger app today. Better late than never, I guess.

The new app is available as a free download from the Android Market. Setup is as simple as logging in with your Google account. If you have multiple blogs linked to your account, you can switch between sites from a drop-down menu.

Once you choose the blog, you’re greeted with a basic user interface for creating a new post. You can enter a title and text, upload photos from your Android gallery or other apps including any file browsers you have installed, or click a button to open your camera app and shoot a new photo to upload immediately.

Once installed, Blogger will also show up as a sharing option in other apps, allowing you to share photos from any app.

You can add your location to a post by tapping the location button and choosing from a list of nearby sites. Finally you can save a draft or publish your post.

And that’s about it. While you can create basic posts on the go using these tools, there’s no rich text editor for adding boldface, bullet points, or other formatting. There’s no way to upload or link to videos, and even hyperlinking appears to be absent.

There’s also no way to see or edit posts created using Blogger’s web interface. Only posts created on your phone show up — although you can edit and delete those posts. There’s also no way to moderate comments.

Overall, it’s great to see that Google has finally brought an official Blogger app to the Android Market. But it doesn’t hold a candle to mobile blogging apps from WordPress or other platforms yet.