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Wanted - Native Bible Software App

Lionheart

Lionheart

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 29, 2007
171
0
Tampa, FL
Hey all you developers out there...I have a request for a native Bible software app. A simple reader for indexed and searchable text files would be awesome.

e-Sword.net offers a great piece of software (free study Bible, but only runs on PC), and the Mobile version of the program works great. If one could develop an app that could read the various version files used by that software, that would a fantastic program. As a matter of fact, the field of Bible software for OSX in general is severely lacking and needs some attention.

I'm sure there are others out there who agree. Anybody else wishing they had this app?
 
One Option . . .

Lionheart:

If you have used AppTapp or whatever method you choose to "open" your iPhone for third party apps, you can use the Books app which is excellent and upload the Bible version of your choice. I currently carry, KJV, ESV and NIV on mine and it is native (in the phone, not an online app). The only downside is that it is not searchable . . . yet. However, it is quick and easy to use and read. It was the one "missing feature" of my iPhone (well, and Intelligolf).

For Bible software on the Mac I use Accordance which is very good and gets better with every upgrade. For an online Bible for study, Blue Letter Bible can't be beat.

Hope this helps!
 
Indydenny said:
Lionheart:
I currently carry, KJV, ESV and NIV on mine and it is native (in the phone, not an online app). The only downside is that it is not searchable . . . yet. However, it is quick and easy to use and read. It was the one "missing feature" of my iPhone (well, and Intelligolf).

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...


Indydenny,

Can you tell me where you got your books from (KJV, ESV, and NIV)? I've been looking online and can't really find any good ones.

Thanks,
 
I haven't tried e-Sword, on PC. How does MacSword, as referenced in the Low End Mac article, differ from (or fail to live up to) it?

Also what kind of "reference file" does e-Sword use? MacSword uses modules from the Sword Project, which as best as I can tell is as open-sourced as you can probably get.

I'm with you, mind. I'd love a great, native Bible app for Mac, but haven't come across anything that really fits that for me. That's why I'm asking these questions – I'd like to know what you're looking for in a Bible application. (It's an idea I've always tinkered with, coding one.)

Here's a few things I'd love to see, to get the conversation started:

– Syncing with an iPhone version (either a pre-existing iPhone app, native or online, or with a new Bible app for the iPhone), so bookmarks/notes/whatever else stay together.
– Possible "read aloud" integration, with a professionally produced audio Bible?
– Scalable in use; usually I'm after a quick reference lookup for the most part, usually just to read an interesting passage, and "study Bible" software is overkill. Something like Dictionary.app would be terrific. That said, the 80/20 rule still stands – 80% of an application is only used by 20% of its users (if I remember that right). Any app would need to be flexible in how users could use it.
– A "quick look" feature, similar to what Ctrl-Apple-D provides for the Dictionary.app. With system-wide integration, any time you come across a Bible verse or passage reference, you should be able to hover over it with your mouse and use a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-Apple-B, for instance) to pull up a quick look at the actual Bible verse or passage.

I'm a bit more scatterbrained when it comes to how I like to "bookmark" stuff and save it for later. I think a bookmarking-with-tagging system would be the most flexible, allowing the user to come up with their own system for saving things, but I'm not sure.

Hopefully soon we'll see a Bible application that does what we all want it to do.
 
Indydenny said:
Lionheart:

If you have used AppTapp or whatever method you choose to "open" your iPhone for third party apps, you can use the Books app which is excellent and upload the Bible version of your choice. I currently carry, KJV, ESV and NIV on mine and it is native (in the phone, not an online app). The only downside is that it is not searchable . . . yet. However, it is quick and easy to use and read. It was the one "missing feature" of my iPhone (well, and Intelligolf).

For Bible software on the Mac I use Accordance which is very good and gets better with every upgrade. For an online Bible for study, Blue Letter Bible can't be beat.

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info! I am using AppTapp...loving it. I thought about using Books, but usually the versions out there are in some kind of compressed format, so I wasn't sure that would be a great option...but I would love to have it in the meantime. Can you tell us where you find the text to install?

I hear Accordance is a great tool...but the price seemed a bit steep when I looked at it a while back. I remember they offer a lot of choices, so maybe I need to revisit that and take another look.

Thanks again!
 
I know this isn't exactly what you're looking for, but if you want the Bible on your iPhone the Mormon church website (www.lds.org) has the entire King James version of the bible on their website and it is searchable. Again, it's not Bible software per se, but you can access it through Safari on your iPhone.
 
GeorgeTheMonkey said:
I haven't tried e-Sword, on PC. How does MacSword, as referenced in the Low End Mac article, differ from (or fail to live up to) it?

Also what kind of "reference file" does e-Sword use? MacSword uses modules from the Sword Project, which as best as I can tell is as open-sourced as you can probably get.

I'm with you, mind. I'd love a great, native Bible app for Mac, but haven't come across anything that really fits that for me. That's why I'm asking these questions – I'd like to know what you're looking for in a Bible application. (It's an idea I've always tinkered with, coding one.)

Here's a few things I'd love to see, to get the conversation started:

– Syncing with an iPhone version (either a pre-existing iPhone app, native or online, or with a new Bible app for the iPhone), so bookmarks/notes/whatever else stay together.
– Possible "read aloud" integration, with a professionally produced audio Bible?
– Scalable in use; usually I'm after a quick reference lookup for the most part, usually just to read an interesting passage, and "study Bible" software is overkill. Something like Dictionary.app would be terrific. That said, the 80/20 rule still stands – 80% of an application is only used by 20% of its users (if I remember that right). Any app would need to be flexible in how users could use it.
– A "quick look" feature, similar to what Ctrl-Apple-D provides for the Dictionary.app. With system-wide integration, any time you come across a Bible verse or passage reference, you should be able to hover over it with your mouse and use a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-Apple-B, for instance) to pull up a quick look at the actual Bible verse or passage.

I'm a bit more scatterbrained when it comes to how I like to "bookmark" stuff and save it for later. I think a bookmarking-with-tagging system would be the most flexible, allowing the user to come up with their own system for saving things, but I'm not sure.

Hopefully soon we'll see a Bible application that does what we all want it to do.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback, George. I'd love to collaborate with you on such a project, if you're game to give it a go.

MacSword isn't even in the same class as E-Sword. I've purchase numerous electronic Bibles over the years, and I like E-Sword better than most of them. It fits the bill for me so well that I've abandoned all the other ones. But, after I finally surrendered to :apple: fever and got all Mac'd up, I'm now on the hunt again. I'm willing to pay for a good program, but not hundreds, because I don't use all that many features. Truth is, I'm running VMWare Fusion primarily to keep my E-Sword up and running!

The beauty of E-Sword is the vast amount of FREE texts and tools they have (dang I wish they'd port it over to OS X!) and the simplicity of the interface. As I said earlier, their Windows Mobile version is pretty much perfect. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I've attached a screenshot that's pretty self-explanatory. Simple and efficient.

I wish I could tell you what kind of reference file they use...that's beyond me. I figure it's probably not that tough for a coder to figure out...and since it's free, it would just be an investment of time (for someone with more expertise than I) to try to figure it out.

I hope I'm not rambling too much here...it's late.
 

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Stampyhead said:
I know this isn't exactly what you're looking for, but if you want the Bible on your iPhone the Mormon church website (www.lds.org) has the entire King James version of the bible on their website and it is searchable. Again, it's not Bible software per se, but you can access it through Safari on your iPhone.
Click to expand...

Thanks Stampy. Appreciate your feedback. There's quite few great online Bibles...I want a native app that I can carry with me that won't require WiFi or Edge connections...like I had on my last phone. Came in really handy.

Another thing I miss...where's voice dialing...sheesh. That seems like a no-brainer to me. What's the deal :apple:?
 
Here You Go!

Lionheart said:
Thanks for the info! I am using AppTapp...loving it. I thought about using Books, but usually the versions out there are in some kind of compressed format, so I wasn't sure that would be a great option...but I would love to have it in the meantime. Can you tell us where you find the text to install?
Click to expand...

Sure thing. Any iPod Bible file should work. Just put it in the proper subdirectory for Books.app to find it. The New Testament ESV can be found here: http://www.podbible.org/download.html

Remember that files have to be in .txt or .html format. The KJV can found found several places but you may have to convert it. For a small donation you can get it from Abbie at http://clearsight.org/software . The NIV must be purchased and you will probably have to convert it yourself. (I did)

All of these, of course, work offline which is essential for me in travel. If you need help with any of this, let me know.

A great place for free books already formatted for your Books.app is here: http://manybooks.net/

Good Luck!
 
Indydenny said:
Sure thing. Any iPod Bible file should work. Just put it in the proper subdirectory for Books.app to find it. The New Testament ESV can be found here: http://www.podbible.org/download.html

Remember that files have to be in .txt or .html format. The KJV can found found several places but you may have to convert it. For a small donation you can get it from Abbie at http://clearsight.org/software . The NIV must be purchased and you will probably have to convert it yourself. (I did)

All of these, of course, work offline which is essential for me in travel. If you need help with any of this, let me know.

A great place for free books already formatted for your Books.app is here: http://manybooks.net/

Good Luck!
Click to expand...

Mucho thanks! I'll definitely check this out. I prefer NASB, but Nearly Inspired Version will work in a pinch :)

Appreciate the help!
 
Native Bible Software Coming From Laridian

Update - looks like Laridian is coming to the table with a nice native Bible software app. Not released yet...but there is a video up. Looks like they've done a good job with it.

http://www.ipocketbible.com/

(Thanks for the tip, Nickk!)

Bring it on, guys!
 
Hi Guys,

I am from Australia and don't yet have an iPhone but as soon as they are released I plan to get one. I have done a fair amount of programming in a number of Windows languages and it shouldn't be much of jump to learn objective-c. Hence, I plan to try and write a program for people to use. It is quite a way in the future due to the simple fact that the iPhone isn't yet available (and I will be just starting University so it will not be my first priority).

So, if nobody else writes a native application in the next few months, I will!

Cheers,
James
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1C28 Safari/419.3)

excellent! Can't wait to see a native bible app
 
James Ramsay said:
Hi Guys,

I am from Australia and don't yet have an iPhone but as soon as they are released I plan to get one. I have done a fair amount of programming in a number of Windows languages and it shouldn't be much of jump to learn objective-c. Hence, I plan to try and write a program for people to use. It is quite a way in the future due to the simple fact that the iPhone isn't yet available (and I will be just starting University so it will not be my first priority).

So, if nobody else writes a native application in the next few months, I will!

Cheers,
James
Click to expand...

Thanks, James...I don't know if you're working in OS X yet, but if you could develop a Mac version of E-Sword (or can use those files), that would be AWESOME. Not sure if that's even possible, but you'd have a hit on your hands if you could pull that off.
 
Lionheart said:
Update - looks like Laridian is coming to the table with a nice native Bible software app. Not released yet...but there is a video up. Looks like they've done a good job with it.

http://www.ipocketbible.com/

(Thanks for the tip, Nickk!)

Bring it on, guys!
Click to expand...

From what I read this is a web app and not an installed app. Looks like you need internet access and has all sorts of fees with it.
 
Hi,

I am glad there is positive interest. I am currently coming up to my year 12 exams so I have not yet changed my computer to a dual boot Mac/Windows machine. Exams end late in November, but the problem remains, even if I make progress with writing some sort of program, I really need an iPhone to test it (they won't be in Aus till some time 1st quarter).

Cheers,
James

P.S. Sorry Lionheart, I don't think I will make an OSX version of E-sword.
 
James Ramsay said:
Hi,

I am glad there is positive interest. I am currently coming up to my year 12 exams so I have not yet changed my computer to a dual boot Mac/Windows machine. Exams end late in November, but the problem remains, even if I make progress with writing some sort of program, I really need an iPhone to test it (they won't be in Aus till some time 1st quarter).

Cheers,
James

P.S. Sorry Lionheart, I don't think I will make an OSX version of E-sword.
Click to expand...

Bummer....but thanks for jumping into the fray! We need something like this for the Mac. Anybody?

Back to my original request - native Bible app for the iPhone. Now is your chance to make history and change the world, one pocket at a time.
:)
 
Follow up - Installer.app just released two versions of KJV for the Books app today, if somebody is looking for a decent temporary solution...

I'm using the WEB version, which I downloaded as text and numbered books to keep in biblical order.
 
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