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 :

• 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..)

It’s a bit of a shame. Looks like the failure of the TNIV was a failure of marketing more than anything else, and conservative/fundamentalist elements ended up being quite opposed to it. I never used it as my primary Bible but whenever I did refer to it I usually found it preferable to the old NIV. And not just because it is “gender-inclusive” I just found it had better readability and clarity. I hope they don’t sacrifice any of these 3 things in the NIV 2011. I’m actually in favour of the gender-inclusive approach to passages which are not addressed to a specific gender. It’s not standard english practice to address a group of men and women as “brothers” so why should a modern translation retain such culturally bound language? Maybe it’s just my non-conservative bias coming through

I don’t actually own a proper TNIV (only a parallel version with The Message – something the fundamentalists would hate even more!) so now might be a good time to invest in one before they disappear. Who knows, it might be a collectors item in future years…

Presently I mainly switch between the NLT-SE (very readable although at a cost of some depth of meaning I think) and NRSV (which seems to combine some of the best of the features of readability, clarity and depth, gender-inclusiveness, and still some of that classic English traditional feel) – sometimes I’ll look in the ESV which is a quite literal version but a bit heavy going.

[please note if you are searching for the NRSV online don't go to NRSV.com - you'll be in for a bit of a nasty surprise... lol]

For more discussion of the NIV issue take a look at Scot McKnight’s blog and the Better Bibles Blog.

In related news, my favourite Bible software company Laridian is close to releasing their PocketBible software for the iPhone. This will be far superior to any of the existing iPhone Bible software and since I already own all their Bibles/commentaries etc etc I will be able to get them all on my iPhone without having to pay again (including the TNIV and many more). The app is awaiting approval by Apple at the moment – keep an eye on their blog for updates or I’ll be sure to mention it here once it finally gets released