The WordPress Evangelist

I’ve recently purchased a premium plugin for creating the mobile edition of my WordPress sites: WPtouch™ 2.0 Pro. I’d been using the free version of WPtouch (up to v1.9.16) and had been quite happy with it, so I decided to give the paid version a go. The premium version promised better features, you see. And, so far, I’m really satisfied with this plugin by Brave New Code (BNC). The $29 (Canadian) price tag seems really worth it, considering the broad functionality the plugin offers.

WPtouch doesn’t only give you added reach — by making your WordPress-powered sites available to the increasing number of mobile Internet users out there — but it also presents new opportunities for exploring the mobile platform for your online presence.

When you install and activate WPtouch 2.0 Pro, you will have access to its dashboard (“WPtouchboard“), where you will be able to tinker with tons of tweakable settings. There are visual controls over the design and back-end aspects of your mobile site, such as input boxes for ad placements (currently supported: AdSense & Admob) and statistics tracking (you can embed your Google Analytics code). On the other hand, you have complete control over the plugin’s code — it is GPL, after all — so you can dive in and swim around the plugin’s internal workings all you like.

One huge difference between the free and paid versions of WPtouch is in theme management. In the free version, you only get one theme, and if you modify it, you’ll lose the mods when the plugin is upgraded. In WPtouch Pro, you can create your own themes and get to keep the mods & customizations across plugin upgrades. What’s more, BNC promises to ship more themes in the near future. But if you’re a theme designer, you can actually make use of the built-in skeleton template and create your own unique theme!

By the way, BNC is looking for theme designers who’re willing to contribute to the pool. If they ship your theme with the plugin, that’s going to be a good advertising opportunity for your services! I don’t know what other benefits you might receive — why don’t you go ahead and find out for yourself?

What’s an iPhone app without cool, shiny icons? Another WPtouch feature is its skinning capability. You can choose from the 200+ icons that come with the plugin for use on your mobile site, or you can upload your own. You can also create an iPhone home-screen icon for use when you create a home-screen bookmark (BNC calls it “WebApp”), as well as a splash page that appears when you launch the WebApp. When you create a WebApp, your mobile site will be displayed in full-screen mode. No navigation, no address bar. Excellent for keeping your visitors glued to your site, no? (Now, all you’ll need is to make sure you got great content!)

One more thing I appreciate in the way BNC designed this plugin is that, WPtouch is made to be aware of other plugins in your WordPress installation. If there are conflicting plugins, WPtouch will let you know about it. Plus, there’s an option to disable plugins that are not compatible with WPtouch when your site is loaded on a mobile platform. On the flip side, it will also tell you with which other plugins it works best.