It’s a whole new WordPress for a whole new platform. WordPress for iOS, version 2.6, is now optimized to take advantage of the iPad’s new user interface, making blogging from your device even easier than ever before. Download it from the App Store today or read more about it on the WordPress for iOS website.

A short list of reasons why this is the best version yet include:

• Video. Record, upload, attach, and play videos within the app. Yay for being able to catch your friends’ and co-workers’ most embarrassing shenanigans creative moments with iPhone video and publish them immediately for all the world to see on your WordPress site.
• A total rewrite of the way local drafts are handled, to prevent the unintentional loss of your pending posts.
• Autosave/post revisions. Bam! One of the “oh, thank goodness” features of the web app makes it into the iOS version.
• Easier setup. Faster and easier process for adding your sites to the app.
• Media Library. We’re gradually getting closer to the media management you’re used to in the web app.

***Please note: Some users are reporting an error message related to login information after installing this update. If you get an error message related to your username and password but are sure your information is correct, please remove the app from your iOS device and do a clean install. Be sure to convert any Local Drafts to online posts before removing the app. The developers are working on a 2.6.1 bugfix release to be submitted soon.

Some of the hot new features of WordPress 2.9 include:

Global undo/”trash” feature, which means that if you accidentally delete a post or comment you can bring it back from the grave (i.e., the Trash). This also eliminates those annoying “are you sure” messages we used to have on every delete.

Built-in image editor allows you to crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale your images to show them who’s boss. This is the first wave of our many planned media-handling improvements.

Batch plugin update and compatibility checking, which means you can update 10 plugins at once, versus having to do multiple clicks for each one, and we’re using the new compatibility data from the plugins directory to give you a better idea of whether your plugins are compatible with new releases of WordPress. This should take the fear and hassle out of upgrading.

Easier video embeds that allow you to just paste a URL on its own line and have it magically turn it into the proper embed code, with Oembed support for YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, and WordPress.tv (and more in the next release).

More information can be found in the WordPress 2.9 Codex.