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iPads can now see WordPress blogs in an optimized view

WordPress is the world's most popular blogging tool, with over 25 million users. The iPad is the world's most popular tablet device, with over 17 million shipped in 2010. What happens when you get these two popular kids together? Magic.

Automattic Inc, the company behind WordPress, announced a new iPad-optimized view for all WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress blogs. The company has developed a new plug-in in cooperation with Onswipe that provides iPad users with a special experience, featuring touch controls that provide navigation of WordPress blogs through swiping, rotation and other gestures. The plug-in even knows how to properly format content based on the orientation of the iPad.

As you can see in the screenshot at right, the iPad-optimized view displays posts in a visual grid, with individual posts readable with a tap. The plug-in is entirely HTML5-compliant, and it can be customized from the WordPress Dashboard to create a magazine-like cover page, display a logo on the cover and choose from nine different skins to match the overall theme of your site.

For WordPress.com users, the plug-in is available with a touch. Self-hosted WordPress users just need to install the Onswipe plug-in available here.

Automattic notes that WordPress.com is already seeing about 750,000 page views a day from iPad visitors, with the numbers rising rapidly.