Introducing Blocknotes: The Native iPhone App Running WordPress
WordPress has been a game-changer in the world of website development, and now it’s taking things to the next level with Blocknotes. This experimental app, created by WordPress core committer Ella van Durpe, runs WordPress natively on the iPhone. Powered by WordPress Playground, a project that runs the software in the browser without a PHP server, Blocknotes allows you to create notes with Gutenberg, save them as HTML files to iCloud, and synchronize them across your devices.
The Significance of Blocknotes
The significance of this app running natively on iOS is that it demonstrates the possibilities of running WordPress in many new contexts without the requirement of a server. This implementation can even be turned into an app template to build a WordPress app with the click of a button.
Adam Zieliński, the creator of WordPress Playground, believes that Playground, as a WebAssembly software, brings WordPress to Node.js, mobile devices, desktop apps, ecosystems like VS Code that support JavaScript extensions. The mobile app, desktop app, and a hosted web app could all use the same code and also provide a Playground-based demo version.
Zieliński said he expects to see people building mobile apps in the future “with nothing more than a WordPress plugin.” This would drastically reduce the learning curve for creating and customizing mobile apps. “Or even better, with no code at all – they’d just use the admin interface to configure a WordPress site to look and act like an app,” he said. “Changing the app look and feel could be the same as switching a theme in WordPress.”
The Future of WordPress Playground
WordPress Playground is being developed to become “the official WordPress previewer,” according to the roadmap – the officially supported tool for testing WordPress plugins, new features, beta/RC releases, without expensive infrastructure. Demos and testing sites can be launched instantly by clicking a link. The project also promises to provide an interactive learning experience for WordPress documentation to help new developers.
Opening new doors for WordPress is also on the project’s roadmap, for the creation of tools that run across multiple devices. WordPress Playground removes limitations developers have lived with for years. “Let’s enable a new generation of WordPress tools running on desktops, mobile devices, in CLI, and inside web browsers,” Zieliński said. “Imagine WordPress as a cross-device note-taking app, or WooCommerce as a ticket-scanning app running on a phone, or a code editor running on a tablet where you can build WordPress extensions. WordPress won over 40% of the web as an app that can only run on a server. What will happen now that WordPress can run on almost any device?”
How Blocknotes Works
Zieliński explained that this particular experimental app is technically a WebView that runs an HTML page where the WebAssembly version of PHP runs – the same one as on playground.wordpress.net. “Browsers and other JavaScript runtimes all adopted a common standard that is WebAssembly,” he said. “Turns out you can build many ‘regular’ programs, including PHP, to that standard and then you can run them in the browser.”
Blocknotes allows you to create notes with Gutenberg, save them as HTML files to iCloud, and synchronize them across your devices. This paves the way for future WordPress-based mobile apps and that’s just a start.
Beta Testing Blocknotes
The Blocknotes app is not yet available in the app store but it can be tested via the TestFlight app. van Durpe said it can also be installed on macOS.
Blocknotes is available for beta testing! Even though I already use it for my notes, be careful! Normally, if the app freezes, your notes should be safe in iCloud Drive. This release comes with a new feature: folders!
Conclusion
Blocknotes is a game-changer for WordPress, allowing it to run natively on iOS devices and paving the way for future WordPress-based mobile apps. This experimental app demonstrates the possibilities of running WordPress in many new contexts without the requirement of a server. WordPress Playground is being developed to become “the official WordPress previewer,” according to the roadmap, and promises to provide an interactive learning experience for WordPress documentation to help new developers. With Blocknotes and WordPress Playground, the possibilities for WordPress are endless.
