TumblPad: Tumblr Finally Releases Its Native iPad App, Sporting Enhanced Navigation & Markdown Support

Screen shot 2012-12-19 at 7.10.40 PM

Now that Tumblr’s blackouts are behind it, the company is back to focusing on its product — particularly its mobile one. Days after adding support for Android tablets, the company has announced that it updated its iOS app, adding compatibility for both the iPad and iPad mini.

Tumblr’s mobile channel is growing and, by the way, has recently helped to propel the blogging platform to more than 20 billion monthly pageviews. The company last updated its iOS app in November to improve user experience, speed, and engagement on the iPhone by making the app “native” — i.e. integrating it more deeply into the iOS experience.

For those who’ve already been Tumbl-ing on the iPhone, the new support for iPad will be familiar. First and foremost, because the app has “native” support for the iPad, it means that you no longer have to deal with the slow load times of your local browser. So, because of that, the user experience is more frictionless, more responsive and just feels more, well, native.

Like Tumblr for the iPhone, the new app includes familiar features like one-touch re-blogging, pinch and zoom to enlarge photos (and larger photos in general), multi-blog management, offline support, and so on.

However, the upgrade also brings some new iPad-specific additions as well, like its new navigational sidebar, which remains in-view as you peruse the Tumblr universe. A new Path-esque pie menu pops out of the sidebar, allowing for enhanced posting options, as well as landscape and markdown support.

Tumblr developer Bryan Irace tells the Verge that it only took the company “a few weeks” to develop its iPad app, but the main reason it’s been so long in coming is that Tumblr spent the summer working on its recent iPhone upgrade. Once it had optimized the user experience for smartphones, it was free to turn its attention to the iPad.

After a few minutes playing around with the new app, it’s easy to see that Tumblr is well-suited for the tablet. The blogging platform has always championed simple design, focusing the attention on the visual experience provided by its millions of content creators. That’s part of the reason why it has become one of the go-to channels for posting video, images and GIFs — really for any content that requires more than 140 characters, more space, or that doesn’t immediately need to be blasted to your entire social graph.

Because it already lends itself so well to images, video and multimedia content, Tumblr looks great on the iPad, as images appear in high-resolution without being limited by the smaller screen size. It’s a pleasure to tap around your high-res dashboard and, overall, offers a far more responsive experience than viewing Tumblr on your iPad’s browser. Plus, there’s less friction around creating new content, which is a plus.

Maybe even a holiday miracle.

Check out Tumblr for the iPad here.