MarkdownMail for iPhone and iPad allows you to write articles in the Markdown format. You'll then be able to export the markdown in an email or send beautifully formatted HTML emails from the app itself. For those who aren't familiar with what markdown is, let's cover that first. Markdown is a markup language created by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz. It's extremely easy to learn and extremely convenient and efficient for publishing online. Markdown will basically convert your content into valid and properly formed XHTML. You don't have to deal with HTML tags and code. Markdown will take care of that for you.

Read on for a quick walkthrough of MarkdownMail which is currently available for both iPhone and iPad.

[iTunes Link]

MarkdownMail is a very simple app that looks like a plain note pad at first sight. In reality, it's so much more than that. I've actually started using MarkdownMail to write a majority of my content for TiPb. The language itself is extremely easy to learn. John Gruber has a Markdown Syntax guide on Daring Fireball that's extremely easy to follow. It was only a matter of an hour before I was able to punch out articles in MarkdownMail on my iPad and publish well formatted articles without the hassle of writing in actual HTML. I'd highly recommend anyone that publishes frequently online to learn markdown, as it is much cleaner and makes editing dead simple.

As for MarkdownMail itself, you will basically type all of your content in Markdown language. You can also preview as you go. So if you aren't sure of the syntax, try it and then preview. There is also a built in syntax reference shortcut that will take you directly to John Gruber's guide online.

When you're done writing content, you can choose to email the article as an HTML document, which is great if you'd like to send an email with bullet points or emphasis. I've used this feature for work emails and outlines. Alternately you can choose to just copy the HTML code to the clipboard and paste it wherever you'd like.

When publishing articles, I simply choose to email myself the markdown version. This way I can simply copy and paste it. Then all I've got left to do is embed images and video. It allows me to write wherever I want, whenever I want. One thing I do wish Markdown supported was accounts. It would be nice to sign in to an account within the app and have it bring in the same articles on my iPhone that I am working on from the iPad. This would give me even more freedom to write. It may be an unrealistic request but if it did happen, I'd be in markdown heaven!

Pros

Dead simple interface
Several export options when it comes to what you're doing with your content
Built-in syntax reference guide for the markdown language
The app is a universal binary, so you can download on iPhone and iPad with one purchase