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16th September 2009

PocketBible for iPhone

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Categories : Bible, iPhone |

Today a piece of software was released which I’ve been waiting for every since I got my iPhone – Laridian PocketBible. I’ve been a long time user of Laridian software on my Palm and Windows Mobile PDAs and phones and have acquired quite a large “library” of Bible versions, commentaries and other books from them. The great thing about this company is that when you switch to a different platform you don’t have to re-purchase all the books – you can download them all onto your new phone for free. So now I have my Laridian library on my iPhone at last!

The bibles and books are stored on the memory of the iPhone, thus once you have downloaded them initially, an internet connection is not required, unlike the YouVersion Bible software I have been using over the last couple of months. Some of the books I have on my phone include :pb1

  • Bibles – NLTse, NIV, TNIV, ESV, NRSV, NASB, MSG, NKJV, Amplified, and God’s Word (of course) plus many more..
  • Study Bibles – ESV, NIV, NLT, Life Application study Bibles. Also ‘antique’ ones like Scofield and Ryrie (for curiosities sake) etc
  • Commentaries – IVP New testament commentary, Life Application Commentary, Ancient Christian Commentary, Matthew Henry etc etc
  • Devotions – My Utmost, Morning and Evening etc
  • Books – Foxes Book of Martyrs, Pilgrim’s Progress, Imitation of Christ etc
  • Dictionaries – a number of Bible and Theological Dictionaries, Greek and Hebrew, Bible maps etc etc

So as you can see, a big part of the appeal of this software is the range of resources you can have at your fingertips on your phone. Flipping between books is easy. There are powerful search functions included. Highlighting and bookmarking passages is simple and these can be categorized for later retrieval and sorting. The Settings page is well populated giving a range of options to customise the view. Font type and size can be changed, you can have red-letter on or off, view Strong’s numbers, set your preferred translation, dictionary etc, choose to show or hide the status bar, title, and buttons.

There are a few features that I feel could be improved but some are just things that I need to get used to. For example text does not scroll in the usual iPhone scrolling style, rather you advance text by pressing the left area of screen to advance a page or a verse at a time. I’m sure I’ll get used to this but it still would be nice to have the option of more traditional style iPhone scrolling. Another thing is it doesn’t seem to support having more than one book open on the same page, like previous versions of PocketBible on other platforms. I found this a really valuable feature, being able to view two bibles (or a bible and a commentary) at the same time – I really hope this gets introduced soon. Logging into your Laridian account and downloading books is very easy, but it would be nice if they somehow incorpprated the ability to purchase new books directly on the iPhone, rather than having to do so on their website as at present. This is not a big issue for me (since I already own most of their stuff) but for new customers would be a great feature. Plus I’m sure they’d sell more books that way!

Another possible idea for them would be to consider implementing some sort of social networking feature. This is one of the few things I liked about the YouVersion software – for any passage you can link to a section called Contribs which includes other people’s submitted thoughts/blogs etc – almost like a ‘wiki-commentary.’ Obviously this is quite a big step outside what Laridian software have done to date though. Another possibly easier suggestion (which YouVersion doesn’t have) would be to allow posting of verses to Twitter/Facebook etc. This would be in keeping with these ethos of a wide range of other iPhone apps which allow posting of all sorts of things. These are just pipe-dream suggestions though.

Having said all this, Laridian have made it clear on their blog that this is just the first release, and they have a number of updates already planned in coming months – so hopefully we will see some of these issues dealt with, plus other cool new features coming soon. (EDIT : I’ve already been informed on facebook that the split screen feature is  definitely in the pipeline).

Overall this is a great piece of software that finally makes my iPhone experience complete in a way. Even on it’s first version PocketBible is far superior to any other Bible software for iPhone in terms of both it’s functionality and the amount of resources you can get for it. If you are looking for Bible software for your iPhone then look no further – go and download this straight away and start building your library. Laridian also regularly offer good discounts like 20% off all books so make sure you subscribe to their email newsletter.

Here’s a few more screenshots from the program. I love the fact that it’s so easy to take screenshots on the iPhone (hold down home button and press the top button..)

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Bible, iPhone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 5 responses to “PocketBible for iPhone”

Why not let us know what you think by adding your own comment! Your opinion is as valid as anyone elses, so come on... let us know what you think.

  1. 1 On September 17th, 2009, Craig Rairdin said:

    Thanks for the nice review. Some comments:

    “text does not scroll in the usual iPhone scrolling style” — This is an arguable point. You turn pages in PocketBible just like you do in Kindle and all the major eBook readers for iPhone. This method requires far less interaction for reading and is far less fatiguing. We find that people come to appreciate it after they use it for a while.

    I agree that Safari scrolls Web pages this way, but in that case you have arbitrary text on an arbitrarily large page and you need lots of flexibility for interacting with it if you have any hope of making it readable at all on a small device. However, when you have control over the text, rendering a page at a time is far superior for most uses.

    Again, I admit this is an arguable point. I just wanted to give you the other side.

    “Another thing is it doesn’t seem to support having more than one book open on the same page” — As you point out, we’ve said this is on the suggestion list for a future version. However, on Windows Mobile where we’ve had split screen ability for 10 years, the overall push from customers was toward viewing one book at a time. There are a number of reasons for this, top among them is the switch from fine, targeted, detailed control with a stylus to gross, rough, vague control with a fat thumb. It’s much easier to manipulate multiple windows with a stylus than try to touch a tiny link in a tiny window with a giant finger at the end of the arm of a user with presbyopia. So it will be interesting to see where this particular feature ends up.

    “it would be nice if they somehow incorporated the ability to purchase new books directly on the iPhone” — Can’t do it. It’s against the rules. The new “in-app purchasing” introduced in OS 3.0 is not permitted in free apps. So you either get a free reader, or you pay for the reader and get in-app purchasing. Other than that, there is no in-app commerce permitted in iPhone apps. We’d LOVE to have in-app commerce. Can’t.

    “consider implementing some sort of social networking feature” — This is seldom requested. If you’ve ever spent any time browsing the shared commentary in the apps that support this you might know why. :-)

    Thanks again for your excellent review. Glad to hear you’re enjoying PocketBible for iPhone.

  2. 2 On September 17th, 2009, baggas said:

    Hey Craig – thanks for reading and responding to that.
    I understand your reasoning behind all that and can live without most of those features – except that I’m still very keen to see split screen in a future release.

    While I still like the idea of safari style scrolling you are right I am adjusting quite quickly to the page style navigation.

    It’s a real shame about in-app purchasing as I think it would help your bottom line massively, but I understand it’s out of your hands. How about having an iPhone optimised website where you can purchase books easily, and a clear link from within the app to load that page in Safari? Or would that be against the rules also? I just think anything that allows new users to purchase content using their iPhone without having to sit down at their desktop computer would work strongly in your favour.

    One final suggestion I would make, after having used the app for over 24 hours now. It would be great to somewhere have a list of currently open books to easily switch between them and perhaps select which ones to close down, rather than just having to flick through them using the on-screen navigation. (ie. previous/next) It’s easy to lose track of which books I have open at a time.

    Thanks again. Loving this software. Appreciate all the hard work you have put in and I hope this is a huge success for you guys.

  3. 3 On December 14th, 2009, K. H. Geek said:

    I took it on my trip to Crete, saw a woman reading a book I was interested in while waiting to board the plane, pulled out my Kindle, went to Kindle Store, bingo! I had the book before I had put my carryon away and fastened my seat belt.

    In Crete, decided to read another Kathy Reichs,thirty-seconds later I had the next in her series.

    Back home, sitting with my granddaughter Maddie, she asks if I can get a particular book on my kindle. ZAP! We have her book. Ooops. Grandma may have goofed. Now Maddie wants a Kindle. Mom and Dad are kind of leary about her having one. Maybe someone can explain how I could give her a Christmas Kindle with an expense account attached, as in up to forty dollars a month grandma covers, and all the others she pays for herself. (She’s only ten.) Any ideas out there?

    As a retired librarian of twenty-five years, I see a Kindle as an extension of my librarian philosophy: knowledge is power, knowledge is freedom. Kindle is a library in my pocket.

  4. 4 On January 13th, 2010, graeme said:

    Thanks for the helpful review (new to iphones and bible apps).
    I just saw at the top left of the screen that you also are in Perth. Whaddya know!

  5. 5 On September 3rd, 2010, Jordana said:

    The Kindle is fantastic! I don’t know what others are saying, but I like mine.

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