A few weeks ago we posted a request on our Facebook page for users to suggest reference titles for us to do for PocketBible. Several people mentioned they wanted an English dictionary, so we went exploring on the Internet and found a database of English words and definitions (WordNet 3.0). With some concentrated effort by our programmers, we now have the Laridian English Dictionary—about 150,000 words and over 200,000 definitions, all indexed to work inside PocketBible or MyBible for quick and easy access to definitions of anything you might be reading that is outside your normal vocabulary.

The Laridian English Dictionary contains entries for almost 150,000 unique words and provides part-of-speech, concise definitions for each sense of usage of the word, and sample sentences when necessary for clarification of meaning. Each entry and its variations (i.e. -ed, -ly, -ing forms of the word) are indexed for easy access using the “look up” functionality built into PocketBible and our other readers.

The Laridian English Dictionary retails for $12.99 and is available for the following platforms:

Palm OS  |  Windows Mobile  |  Windows PC  |  iPhone/iPod touch/iPad

Thanks for your comments on my last post. They were very informative and confirmed a number of things that I was thinking about the Android platform as a relative n00b. My only disappointment is that nobody commented on my really cool graphic of a silhouetted Android android listening to his iPod and dancing like one of those Apple ads. Oh, well.

One interesting overall observation was that comments tended to come from people who were more than techie, more than early adopters, but were developers themselves. This is consistent with the perception that Android is a more technically complex platform as compared to iPhone. The comments bore this out as well.

I summarized the comments this way. I divided them into comments from a consumer perspective, those from a programmer’s perspective, and comments related to unique features of the platform that we should look at.

Consumer Perspective

• Android Pros
  • Hard buttons (menu, back, search, etc.)
  • Apps are more collaborative
  • Implicit multitasking
  • Widgets
  • More customizable
  • Free integration with G-apps
• iPhone Pros
  • Apps are more polished
  • Apps are more similar - easier to learn
  • Overall easier to use
  • Apps are more trusted (Apple-vetted store)

Programmer Perspective

• Java!
• Simple background processes
• Other minor programming tasks may be easier to handle
• No App Store police
• “Intents” to communicate with other apps
• Ability to install outside App Store

Unique Features (not already mentioned)

• Speech-to-text; text-to-speech
• Publish a “Look up verse” intent
• “Verse of the day” widget

I, too, like the hard buttons. Right away I’m thinking we don’t have a toolbar like the iPhone app but instead rely on the menu button to cause a standard menu to be displayed. From there we can use a “more” button to expand the range of options that can be chosen from the menu. This will simplify the ui and provide more space for text without having to change any settings like you have to do on the iPhone.

I definitely agree with all the iPhone “pros” that were pointed out. There are small things about the iPhone that just make it feel better. For example, the little bounce you get at the end of a list to indicate that you’re at the end. You don’t notice how nice that is until you don’t have it on Android. And overall the operation of the device feels smooth and effortless.

I’m not a flaming Java fan yet. I’ve been programming in C and C++ for about 28 years. While Java is a descendant of C++, I don’t agree that the differences are necessarily better. They’re just different. For example, while I agree that there’s no real reason to separate the interface description of a class (i.e. the C++ .h file) from its implementation (the .cpp file), putting them together (in the .java file) necessitates the use of a separate “JavaDoc” tool to pull documentation out of the code. In C++ your .h file serves as the class documentation and typically contains no implementation to get in the way — it’s all about documenting the interfaces to your class. Again, not a big deal, but just different.

I’m also not sold on the necessity of eliminating the unsigned integer types. Seriously? I use unsigned ints all the time to indicate specifically that I don’t expect this value to be negative and to subsequently double the range of values that can be stored.

On the other hand I love the fact that the bit-width of each of the integer types is fixed by the language. We share code between several platforms and compilers and have to define types like “Int32″, “Int16″, “Int8″ and their “UInt32″, “UInt16″ and “UInt8″ counterparts for each platform so the shared code will be guaranteed to work right.

And it’s probably the bit-twiddler in me, but I’m not fond of garbage collection. I realize some of you n00bs don’t know how to manage the memory you allocate, but we experts don’t have a problem deleting everything we allocate with “new” and not leaving pointers dangling or memory orphaned. The idea of having a process fire up at some undetermined time and take some undetermined number of processor cycles to do memory management is disturbing. Sure, it’s convenient and this is the last time I’ll complain about it, but I’m just saying it’s disturbing.

Thanks again for the input. I’ve closed comments on the other post since I used this one to summarize them, but feel free to comment here.

OK we’ve been playing with the Android for a while now and have begun to get a feel for it. After spending the last couple of years developing for the iPhone, we have begun to develop some opinions on how the two platforms compare. But today I’m interested in yours, because it will help me shape the way I think about certain aspects of implementation of this app. If you have significant experience with both Android and iPhone, I’d like to hear what you think of the two platforms.

If you gave up iPhone for Android, I’m not interested in how you were treated by AT&T or how bad their coverage or 3G performance is in your area or how much their data plan costs — that doesn’t help me get my head where it needs to be. Instead, I’m looking for your reaction to the platforms themselves. What makes one or the other better? Which is more pleasant to use and why? What makes the applications for one better than those of the other?

Again, the fact that Android is experiencing rapid market share growth is irrelevant to this question. The fact that iPhone is only available on one carrier doesn’t matter. The fact that you can get Android phones from a variety of manufacturers won’t help me. I’m looking for your reaction to the look and feel of the operating system and the best apps on each phone.

In order to be relevant, you should have more than just passing familiarity with both platforms. I’m not looking for input from those who are die-hard fans of one platform but who have only passing knowledge of the other. I’m hoping to find a few people who have spent a couple months or more using each of these platforms as their primary phone and who have purchased a few apps for each.

Along the way you’ll pick up our opinion I’m sure. But right now I’m looking for yours. Thanks for your help.

Alright, let’s start talking about Android. I’m interested in your feedback on a few things.

Our plan is to release something as soon as it’s usable in any fashion, then to keep releasing updates as new features are added until we get to the point where a relatively full feature list is in place. I’m interested in your priorities — what makes for a good first release, and what order should things be done in?

At this point we haven’t done anything to lock ourselves into a minimum Android version. Any suggestions? What’s the minimum version we should support?

Any features that make sense on Android that we haven’t done on other platforms? I’m thinking about features that might be unique to Android that make certain features in our program more possible or necessary.

You’re going to continue to hear us talk about iPhone and other projects going on here but never fear; we have time carved out for Android development and it will be moving ahead. Thanks in advance for your input.

The first of four new PocketBible products is available on the App Store. “PocketBible FREE” was approved earlier this evening.

We’re still waiting for approval on the Life Application Study Bible Collection, the NIV Study Bible Collection, and the NIV Reference Collection. These are primarily targeted at new users of PocketBible, but depending on the state of your PocketBible Library, you might find them to be valuable as an existing customer.

The new version features a built-in link to the PocketBible Bookstore. The approval snuck up on me this evening and I’m not quite done with all the tweaks to the product catalog. If you find a problem with any of the product pages, send me an email at craigr@laridian.com. Please don’t post them here.

Note that when you purchase a book from the built-in bookstore, we’ll eventually be able to tell PocketBible to automatically download it when you go to Add/Remove Books. That feature requires some more work on the server, which I hoped to get done this weekend but it’s looking less and less likely. Soon.

This version should also fix any lingering task-switching problems for iPhone 4 owners.

We’ve updated PocketBible to fix an annoying little problem on iPhone 4 in which what we call the “launch options” screen is displayed when you re-start PocketBible after the OS has dumped it from memory while it was idle. While we were in there, we added a couple little features:

iPhone and iPad Features

• Added an option to enable/disable the use of colored buttons in the Bk/Ch/Vs verse selection forms to indicate sections of the Bible. Some people really hated what one of you called the “funky button colors” so we gave you the option to use a very un-funky gray for all the buttons.
• Added an option to set margins and line leading for single- and multiple-pane screen configurations. Some people wanted to see more text on the screen in the single-pane mode. This lets you do that. While we were at it we gave you the option of setting margins and leading in the multiple-pane view, too.
• Fixed a bug in which the temporary highlighting of the linked-to verse could disappear after synchronization with our server, removing or updating books, or coming out of the suspended state (iOS 4).

iPhone-only Features

• Added “Split Screen” to Context menu. It’s a little more convenient there than going to Menu, Settings, Open Panes, and choosing “2″.
• Fixed a bug that caused the launch options form to sometimes be displayed when coming out of the “suspended” state.

The next update won’t have any new features in it per se, but gives us the ability to sell our “collections” on the App Store and sets us up for in-app purchasing of books.

We recently released a fiction series, Oracle of Fire, for use with PocketBible and MyBible. The Series by Bryan Davis contains four titles:

• Eye of the Oracle
• Enoch’s Ghost
• Last of the Nephilim
• The Bones of Makaidos

The books are fantasy adventure with clear spirital insight targeted at readers 13 and up. Available for the following platforms:

Palm OS  |  Windows Mobile  |  Windows PC  |  iPhone/iPod touch/iPad

We recently released The Expanded Bible New Testament for use with PocketBible for Windows PC and iPhone/iPod touch/iPad.

The Expanded Bible is a unique translation which offers study aids right in line with the Bible text. Expanded translations and other helps make it possible for you to study the Bible while you read.

Sample Verse:

“But Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth [literally, Truly, Truly I say to you], unless you are born from water and the Spirit [equivalent to being born again (3:3); water could symbolize spiritual cleansing which brings renewal; Ezek. 36:25-27] you cannot enter God’s kingdom.” John 3:5

Today we submitted PocketBible 1.4.1 and PrayerPartner 1.1.0 to the App Store.

PrayerPartner has been updated for iOS 4. This is primarily related to making PrayerPartner aware of and compatible with multitasking. However, we are also taking advantage of a new feature of iOS 4 - a programmatic interface to the text messaging composition form. PrayerPartner has previously helped you send emails regarding requests on your prayer list. Now it can also help you send text messages.

We also took this opportunity to add some email and text messaging capability to PocketBible. While I ran into some problems that prevented me from including these features in our 1.4.0 update, those issues have been resolved. PocketBible now allows you to send Bible verses via email or text messaging to people in your contact list.

Note that the text messaging features are only available with iOS 4, and your device must be capable of sending text messages.

As always, we expect the approval process to take 2 to 10 days. When the updates are approved, iTunes will notify you that the updates are available.

This posting has been edited to reflect the fact that PocketBible 1.4.0 and RomansRoad 1.0.3 are now available on the App Store. Comments prior to the afternoon of 24 June were posted before the apps became available for download.

Both PocketBible and RomansRoad have been updated to account for new features in what Apple calls iOS 4 — version 4.0 of the iPhone OS.

What this boils down to is that the app saves its state when it is notified that the user wants to switch to another app, then restores its state when the OS notifies it that the user has switched back to it. These hoops would be completely unnecessary if Apple implemented “multitasking” the same way Windows, Windows Mobile, and even the Mac OS implements it. That is, your app doesn’t have to do anything special to run at the same time as other apps on those platforms. Leave it to Apple to reinvent the wheel — and the axle, differential, drive shaft, and engine.

The new version of PocketBible also implements several changes related to notes, highlights, bookmarks, and synchronization with the server:

• When saving notes we used to convert “special characters” like emdash, left- and right-double-quotes, bullets, etc. into HTML character entities. This is unnecessary and can be confusing the next time you open the note.
• When synchronizing notes with the server, we’re doing a more consistent job of handling those special characters.
• Previous versions made sure all the Toolbox panes were kept up-to-date even when they were not the active pane. As a result you could spend a lot of time waiting for a list that you never look at to be updated. The new version only updates panes when they are active or become active. This should speed up launching and updating the screen after synchronizing with the server.
• We sped up synchronization of large data sets by making some changes on the server but also by changing the algorithm that iterates over the notes on your device. This also sped up searching of notes.
• We gave you the ability to change the length of time the program will wait for a response from the server when synchronizing your data. This mostly affects users with a large number of notes, highlights and/or bookmarks (say, greater than 1000 of any of these).
• We optimized the case where you’re not really searching your notes but just asking for a list of all the notes in a particular Bible. This affects how quickly the Find Notes pane in the Toolbox can be updated.
• A previous version of PocketBible broke the rotation lock function on the iPhone. It is fixed in this version.

We still have a couple features we’re working on that take advantage of some iOS 4 features. If we can get those to work, they’ll be in 1.4.1.

Today we uploaded version 1.012 of PocketBible for Windows, and version 1.002 of the iPocketBible.com Server Synchronization Provider (formerly known as the iPhone Sync Provider). These updates address three issues:

1. Notes containing certain special characters could become corrupted in the synchronization process as those special characters were passed from platform to platform, each of which may have treated them differently.
2. Because of differences in the way the PC and our server implemented the synchronization algorithm, “old” data from the PC could be deleted when syncing with existing data from an iPhone.
3. Since we were making changes, we also changed the way the PC keeps track of the date/time of the last sync. The new method eliminates rare problems caused by differences in the system time between the server and your PC.

To get the latest version of PocketBible for Windows, simply log into your download account, download it, and install it.

To get the latest iPocketBible.com Server Sync Provider to replace your old iPhone Sync Provider, go to the PocketBible for Windows site (http://www.laridian.com/pc) and select “Synchronization Providers” from the Products menu at the top of the page. Follow the instructions near the bottom of the page to download and install the iPocketBible.com Sync Provider.

The previous version of PocketBible should refuse to work with the new sync provider, and the new sync provider will refuse to work with the old version of PocketBible. So if you don’t get them installed correctly the program will tell you.

An important new feature added to PocketBible for Windows is the ability to reset your sync history. This forces PocketBible to treat the next sync as if it is the first. If you ever have to restore your PocketBible for Windows user data database, you’ll want to reset the sync history or you risk confusing the sync algorithm. When it sees that you have old data in your database that is no longer on the server, it will delete the data you just restored from your backup (thinking that you deleted it from the server). If you reset your sync history, it may find duplicates and ask you about them, but it won’t delete anything.

iPhone/iPad Users: There will be an update to the iPhone/iPad version of PocketBible to make some adjustments to the way certain special characters are handled. We currently are planning to roll this into our “iPhone 4″ update, which will be uploaded to Apple just as soon as we can.

Thanks for your patience while we worked on these updates.

Synchronization between PocketBible for Windows and the iPocketBible.com server has been turned off while we work to correct an issue related to synchronizing your personal data between multiple devices.

We’ve discovered a very specific sequence of events that could result in data added on your PC being removed from your PC on a subsequent data synchronization. Even though we believe that the likelihood of this affecting you, specifically, is low, we’d prefer to disable synchronization until we can address the issue. As the old adage goes: “Better safe than sorry.”

We expect that the fix will be included in an update to PocketBible for Windows. The update will be required for all customers who synchronize PocketBible for Windows with the iPocketBible.com server. If you are using synchronization only on the iPhone or iPad, you are not affected by this problem.

The fix shouldn’t be hard but any time we work on the code that directly manipulates your user-created data we try to be extra careful. So give us a few days to get this updated.

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you in advance for your patience while we address this issue.

We just got an email from Apple saying PocketBible for iPhone/iPad is approved for the App Store. It could take 24 hours for it to become visible to you. The rest of this posting is a repeat of the announcement we made when we uploaded this new version.

Features are described here.

Video preview here: www.youtube.com/user/laridianinc.

This version adds new features to the iPhone/iPod touch and has native support for the iPad. Current users of PocketBible will see this new version as an update in the App Store app just like any other update.

If you have notes, bookmarks, etc. in MyBible for Palm OS, PocketBible for Windows Mobile, PocketBible for Windows, or iPocketBible.com you’ll be able to move these notes to your iPhone or iPad with this new version. If you have Palm OS or Windows Mobile you first need to synchronize this data with PocketBible for Windows (desktop). Then synchronize from there to iPocketBible.com. Details are here. PocketBible for iPhone/iPad syncs with iPocketBible.com so you need to get your data there to start with, then when you sync with PocketBible for iPhone/iPad it will get your notes, bookmarks, etc. from your other device(s).

Search results are displayed in the Toolbox at the bottom of the screen. Your entire library is searched, usually in a fraction of a second. Library results are on the left; results for the selected book are in the list on the right.

Split the screen into as many as five panes (three shown here) to reference commentaries and other reference books.

Here I’ve changed the font and expanded the Toolbox to give me more room to type my notes. The notes viewer supports HTML so I can create this outline using nested ordered lists. Bible text can be pasted in HTML. Here I’ve made verse numbers bold and made the text small. Any unambiguous references (such as “Col 1:3-8″ at the top) are automatically linked.

When the iPad is rotated, the Toolbox moves to the side (either right or left).

The new calculator-style verse selection method is shown here. Select the book from a drop-down list, then key in the chapter and verse on the keypad.

The Bk/Ch/Vs (”3-tap”) verse selector sports larger buttons on the iPad and is ten buttons wide to make it easier to find chapter and verse numbers.

PocketBible is great for daily devotional reading. Here Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening is shown on the left and the Bible on the right. The Reading Progress window show what you’ve already read (in green) and what you need to read (in red). I’ve hidden the Toolbox to maximize space for reading the text.

We took step one of getting our iPad version of PocketBible released by handing it off to our beta testers this afternoon. We have one known issue we’re still working on, plus whatever our testers find in the next few days.

Our intention (as always) is to have a very brief beta. You never know what you’re going to run into, but the code has been working well for us in-house and we’re hoping the beta testers have the same experience.

As I’ve mentioned before, Apple limits the number of devices we can install to outside the App Store. We have 46 beta testers, many of whom have multiple devices. 14 of them have iPads. That doesn’t include our own employees and company-owned devices. Between all of those we’re right on the edge of not being able to add new devices to our list. With iPhone 4 coming in June we didn’t think it was a good idea to add any beta testers at this point. So you didn’t miss the announcement — there wasn’t one.

While we’ve been promoting this as an iPad version, the fact is that it’s a “universal binary” that runs on both the iPhone and iPad. Many of the new or improved features are also going to be available on the iPhone (and of course, iPod touch). Here’s the feature list in no particular order:

BOTH iPHONE and iPAD

• User data synchronization with iPocketBible.com server
• User data backup/restore to iPocketBible.com server
• Screen brightness setting (Dim the screen for reading at night independent of the backlight setting)
• Multiple panes (Two for iPhone, five for iPad. View multiple books simultaneously, or multiple passages in the same book)
• Decreased page-loading time (thus launch time)
• Splash screen now covers window drawing, then fades (OK, not exactly a feature, but it’s cool)
• Gradiated title bars
• Calculator-style go-to for Bibles (Select the book, then use numeric pad to enter chapter and verse)
• Notes list now shows excerpt of note instead of excerpt of verse
• Improved error messages when nothing is found as the result of a search. Try to tell you how to fix it.
• Updated help

iPAD

• Control panel (Keeps search results and lists of notes, highlights and bookmarks available all the time.)
  • Library search (All searches search your entire library, not just the active book)
  • Notes search (Search your notes using Boolean operators, just like you search the Bible)
  • Book notes (Add notes to non-Bibles)
  • Edit note while using program (Makes it easier to copy/paste verses into your notes)
  • View search results, lists of highlights/bookmarks while using program
  • Lock panes so they don’t sync to content movement (Handy while writing notes or following cross-references out of a search)
• Additional margin and leading in single-book view (Makes for a pleasant reading experience)
• Bk/Ch/Vs go-to has bigger buttons for iPad; laid out 10 buttons wide
• Removed “lock rotation” setting. iPad has a hardware switch for this.
• New title bar style

I’ll post more screen shots and videos this week. Your patience will pay off in the end.

Our RomansRoad eTract for iPhone has been updated for full iPad compatibility. If you already use RomansRoad on your iPhone or iPad, iTunes will notify you that the update is available.

When the new iPad SDK (software development kit) was released, I used the RomansRoad project as a means to learn and experiment with some of the new features provided on the iPad. Since the RomansRoad is a relatively simple application, it proved to be an ideal platform for learning and experimenting with some of the new capabilities and preparing for our PocketBible update to support the iPad. In fact, the RomansRoad eTract has been iPad compatible since before the iPad launch date, but due to some hiccups with the submission process and the fact that we’ve been so busy making PocketBible for iPhone/iPad so awesome, it’s just now available.

RomansRoad is what’s called a “universal binary”, which means that the same program runs on an iPhone or an iPad, though the features on each may differ. (For instance, on the iPad, a table of contents is shown when the iPad is rotated into a landscape orientation.) Since it is a universal binary, you won’t look for “RomansRoad eTract for iPhone” and “RomansRoad eTract for iPad” on the AppStore. You’ll just look for “RomansRoad eTract.”

Frankly, I find that the RomansRoad eTract is much more visually appealing on an iPhone than on the iPad. However, the truth of the gospel transcends the glitzy appearance (or lack thereof)!

The RomansRoad eTract is available on the Apple AppStore.

I think I’ve mentioned before that the “iPad Version” of PocketBible is going to be what Apple calls a universal app. It’s not really iPad-specific. It will run on either an iPhone or an iPad. It decides at run-time which user interface to present and which features to enable. This differs from our Windows Mobile apps, which decide at install time which configuration to install (generally, a “PDA” version or a “smartphone” version).

We’ve been doing our development work on the iPad because that’s where the new features are. Yesterday Jeff installed to his iPhone just to see how we were doing. Everything worked fine, but we ran into a couple places where we forgot to do the “iPad Test” and as a result the iPad user interface was running on the iPhone. The result was the smaller of the two screen shots below.

Five panes on the iPad. Nice.	Five panes on the iPhone with the font size set to 8 points. Ouch!

What’s cool is that it works fine. The tiny navigation overlays even pop up in each pane when you tap them in the center. It’s tough to hit the links, but then at 8 points, they’re tough to hit even with a full screen of text.

This points out a couple interesting facts about this project. First is that there are several features we created for the iPad that will “accidentally” start working on the iPhone, either in the next release or very soon after. For example, we’ll make it so you can open two panes (either two views into the same book or two books). And as I mentioned in connection with the video posted last week, some speed improvements that we made while developing for the iPad will affect the iPhone as well.

The other interesting thing is somewhat related. We share a lot of code between the iPhone, Palm OS, Windows, and Windows Mobile. So today when I was working on showing you a list of all your user-created notes, it was trivial to add the ability to search your notes because that’s a feature we added in PocketBible for Windows Mobile a couple years ago and it’s just been sitting in the shared code, waiting for a user interface on the iPad to expose it. (There won’t be any UI for it on the iPhone in the next release, but it could show up any time.)

The code that does note searching displays its results as a list of Bible verses. That is, if you have a note on John 3:16 that says “God loves me” and you do a search for “me” in your notes, you’ll see the text of John 3:16 in the results instead of seeing your note. So while I was in that code this morning I changed it to display the text of your note. In that case, the advantage goes the other direction — next time we build PocketBible for Windows or Windows Mobile it will automatically start showing the text of the note instead of the Bible in the search results.

I’m really liking the note-taking process on the iPad. With the new control panel, the entire application is still available while you’re writing a note. So just tap the “lock” button so your note editor stops synchronizing with the Bible text as it moves, and you can perform searches, follow cross-references, and copy passages without losing your place in your note. Leave that “lock” function active and you can follow a series of links from a note without having to go back to the noted verse and recalling the note. Again, this is an iPad-only feature in this case, since the iPhone is so much smaller. But it’s cool.

I don’t want to sound like an Apple zealot or iPad fanboy, but I’m starting to think the iPad is the platform for mobile Bible study. I know, I know — you’d like to make that decision for yourself. We’re getting close. It will be worth the wait.

We have released the IVP (InterVarsity Press) Pocket Reference books for use with PocketBible for iPhone/iPod Touch, Windows Mobile or Windows PC.

The IVP Pocket Reference Series includes the following 10 individual reference titles:

• Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion
• Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies
• Pocket Dictionary of Church History
• Pocket Dictionary of Ethics
• Pocket Dictionary of Liturgy & Worship
• Pocket Dictionary of New Religious Movements
• Pocket Dictionary of North American Denominations
• Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms
• Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologyetiocs
• Pocket History of the Church

Each of the titles in this series are designed to be brief, informative, clear and affordable. They provide a quick but thorough reference to topics important to Bible study and Christianity.

The IVP Pocket Reference Series (all 10 books) sells for $39.99. Each book is also available separately for $4.99 to $5.49 each. For more information, click on your desired platform:

iPhone/iPod Touch | Windows Mobile | Windows PC

I’ve uploaded a video preview of PocketBible for iPad to YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/laridianinc. Because the video resolution isn’t as good as the iPad screen resolution, I’ve reproduced some representative screen shots below. Click on the screen shot to see the full-resolution image.

Nearly full-page casual reading mode with increased line leading and margins. Tool bar and title bar can be removed if you really, really have to see one more line of text.

Control panel provides quick access to search results, highlights, bookmarks, notes, and eventually more features. Control panel follows home button as iPad is rotated and can be removed in portrait mode.

PocketBible for iPad quickly searches your entire library at one time and displays number of hits per book. Select a book to see list of results; select a result to see it in context in the book. Control panel shown expanded.

View a list of all your highlights, or all highlights in a particular color in your entire library. Similarly, you can see a list of all bookmarks or all bookmarks in a particular category.

Easily choose a different font and size. Dim the display for reading at night.

Split the screen to show two Bibles side-by-side. Bibles track each other — as you move through one, the other moves to the same verse.

Open a commentary beside a Bible and the two are synchronized. As you view a verse in the Bible, the commentary follows along.

Split the screen into up to five windows.

We reserve the right to make changes to the user interface (UI) and to functionality before we ship. In fact, there are a few things still in flux and at least one major feature that hasn’t been plugged into the new UI yet. So expect changes from what you see here.

We’re especially excited about the flexibility the control panel gives us for new features and for giving you instant access to search results and bookmarks. We also have enjoyed just reading the Bible in full-screen mode.

While the iPad is faster than the iPhone, we’ve also made changes to the code that have really sped up the display of text, making scrolling by verses and even chapters significantly more useful. The nice thing is that the iPhone and iPad code is the same at this level so the improvements will spill over to the iPhone.

Having said that, it should be obvious that not all the features of PocketBible for iPad will find their way to the iPhone. We’ll probably add split-screen, but not more than two windows.

One thing we’re concerned about is app approval times on the App Store. We submitted Romans Road for release on the April 3 iPad release date. We followed Apple’s instructions for making sure our app was available on April 3, but then we never heard anything further from them so we’re not sure what the status of that app is. We’ve heard the same thing from other developers.

We don’t have a schedule for releasing this version of PocketBible yet. As you can see it’s very nearly complete but there are some big features that need to be plugged in.

We’ve received a lot of comments here in the blog and via email about Android. You obviously are interested in a version of PocketBible for Android and that is exciting. We’re interested in a version of PocketBible for Android, too.

The way we see it there are six important mobile platforms right now:

1. iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad
2. Android
3. Blackberry
4. webOS
5. Windows Phone 7
6. Symbian

We have a product for iPhone. It has rather quickly become our flagship product, given the demise of both the Palm and Windows Mobile operating systems. (Both Palm and Microsoft have abandoned their legacy operating systems in favor of webOS and Windows Phone 7, respectively. Old apps won’t run on these new platforms.)

We have a partnership with BEIKS on the Blackberry platform. It’s a great platform but it tends to be more of an enterprise device rather than a consumer device and as a result the demand for third-party software, especially in our niche, is less than what you might expect based on the size of its market.

We have a partnership with Bits of God Software on webOS. We decided not to do our own development for this platform because its market share is relatively small and it does not support traditional programming languages like C++ and Java that would allow us to leverage our existing code.

Windows Phone 7 is a big TBD. Obviously there are zero devices right now and it has zero market share. We include it in the list only because it’s Microsoft, so we anticipate it will be a player. In the meantime we continue to support and release new content for PocketBible for the old/current Windows Mobile operating system

Symbian has problems we’ve addressed before here in the blog. It’s very difficult to successfully market a Symbian product. We’ve attended more than one Nokia/Symbian developer’s conference. We know what’s involved. The problem is not developing, it’s selling. We don’t have any plan to do a Symbian product.

That leaves Android. I can tell you now that we intend to develop a version of PocketBible for Android. But we think there’s more you need to know to understand where we’re coming from.

Sometimes I think people get the impression that we’re bigger than we are. On the one hand, that’s good, because it implies that we’re providing customer service at a level you expect from a bigger company, but on the other hand it can lead to unfounded expectations.

When it comes to product development, there’s just me and Jeff Wheeler here. We have some talented part-time employees who, while they’re skilled at what they do, only add up to the equivalent of a little over one more person. We use some outside contractors for content development (Bibles and reference books). That’s it. Needless to say, that limits what we can do.

Jeff and I used to work at Parsons Technology. I wrote the original version of QuickVerse and brought it to Parsons in 1988. Jeff and I had previously worked together and I hired him in to work at Parsons 1989. He eventually took over QuickVerse development and was the lead programmer for QuickVerse for Windows.

From about 1994 until 1998 when Jeff and I left, he had 10-12 programmers working for him. Most of those were working on QuickVerse. There was a similarly sized group of editors who created new content (Bibles and reference books) for QuickVerse. I had a small marketing group (two people) and a sales group (three or four people). All told there were about 30-35 people just in the Church Software Division. In addition to those we had access to telemarketing, direct sales, support, production and shipping, human resources, accounting, and other departments which we shared with the rest of the company. At our peak in the late 90’s Parsons had about 1200 total employees and the Church Software Division was about 10%-15% of the company’s annual sales. So you could argue that we supported about 120-180 employees.

You can do a lot with 180 people. If something new comes along, you can put a small team on it and get it done. You can’t do the same with three people.

In some respects this doesn’t bother us. We left Parsons Technology in order to be small. (See this article from Christian Computing Magazine which appeared on an old version of our Web site in 2001.) We’ve been big. We know what that’s like. We choose to be small. We enjoy what we do and wouldn’t have it any other way. But realistically, it affects what we can get done in a given period of time. We understand that.

We actually “started working” on an Android version of PocketBible a while back. But then Apple announced the iPad. We felt it was important to make sure that our existing PocketBible app would work well on the iPad. At first we were assured that would not be a problem (all well-behaved iPhone apps work on the iPad) but when we researched it further we realized we’d need to make some changes to optimize our performance on the iPad. We both dropped what we were doing and started work toward getting an iPad-aware version of PocketBible out the door.

This has proven to be challenging. We realized in order to take advantage of the cool new features of the iPad we’d have to re-architect the PocketBible user interface to better take advantage of the larger screen. At the same time, when we’re done the same code needs to run on the iPhone. So all of this has to be done carefully. (You’re going to love the iPad app by the way.)

So when I say “we intend to develop PocketBible for Android” you need to understand that doesn’t mean it will be done next month. It might not even be started by next month.

Furthermore, when we went from developing for Palm OS and Windows Mobile to developing for iPhone, we were able to bring along a lot of code from our previous projects because the iPhone “understands” the language in which it is written. We cannot run any of our existing code on Android. So we’ll be starting from scratch.

To put this in perspective, it took us about a year to release the first version of PocketBible for iPhone when we started with our existing code. It’s been almost two years now and we’re almost (not quite) done implementing all the features of our Windows Mobile app for the iPhone.

For Android we’re starting from nothing. I can’t say at this point how long it will take to develop PocketBible for Android. It’s probably not the case that it will take the year it took for the iPhone program plus the time to write the code we borrowed from our older programs. But at this point I can’t say.

While we are saying we intend to develop for Android, you also have to understand that we have lots of other requests and ideas on our to-do lists. Our Memorize! users would really like to see that app on the iPhone. Our PrayerPartner users are going to want us to port it to the iPad. So even once we start on Android, it might not be the only thing we’re doing.

This all helps explain why we don’t like to talk about what we may or may not do in the future. If we had told you on the day we started working on Android that we were working on Android, we’d have to tell you shortly after that that we had abandoned our work on Android to work on iPad. And now we’re telling you we “intend” to do an Android version but the schedule is unknowable. This won’t be a problem for those of you who are familiar with software development and understand what all is involved, but for those of you who are unfamiliar with software development you’ll probably get the wrong idea about the schedule — either thinking it will take us longer than it will or that it will be done sooner than is physically possible.

For a small company like ours these are exciting times. Back when Palm OS and Windows Mobile ruled the mobile space, we were riding pretty high. Things have changed quickly, and we’re working on responding to the changes. Thanks for sticking with us. We hope you’ll continue to do so.

With the WiFi iPads shipping for delivery in less than a week, I thought we should update you on our status.

Today (March 27) is the last day to submit apps to the App Store and be guaranteed they’ll be available on the iPad App Store on its official release date (April 3). For a while that was our goal, but as time went on we realized it would be in everyone’s best interest if we had a chance to see what PocketBible looked like on the actual hardware. The emulator we run on our Macs is good, but it’s not the real hardware. We’re concerned about performance and simple things like the usability of the user interface, given that we can’t really tell how big our buttons are or what it’s going to “feel” like on a real device until we have one in our hands.

So, we won’t release a product to the App Store until we have a chance to see it running on real hardware. So that means sometime after April 3.

The great thing about the iPad is that it runs our iPhone code pretty much as-is. The bad thing is that it runs our iPhone code as-is. The experience of running an iPhone app on the iPad will be less than optimum, but it at least will give the iPad a couple hundred thousand apps on day one. Ideally, every iPhone developer will be customizing their apps for the iPad, and that’s what we’ve been doing.

While the iPad is a mobile device, it has the screen real estate of a desktop or laptop device (1024 x 768). That means while we’re using our iPhone code as a base, we have to think like we’re developing for the desktop. Not a desktop computer with a mouse and a real keyboard, though, but a desktop computer you operate with your fingers and type on a pop-up keyboard. So the interface is an interesting intersection of desktop and mobile paradigms.

So what will be new or different on the iPad? First, You’ll have plenty of space on the screen for some controls to be present all the time, just like on your desktop where menus and toolbars are generally always there. This makes it easier and more intuitive to get around.

Second, the bigger screen means there’s room to split the screen and show you more than one book at a time if you want.

Third, we’ve taken advantage of this opportunity to add a frequently requested feature: The ability to search your entire library at one time. The larger screen means there’s room to give you both a search results browser and a library browser at the same time. We think this is going to be a great addition to the program.

Finally, you can expect changes to how you open books and navigate within books. It should take fewer touches to find your way around your library.

We’ll post some more details as we get closer to releasing the product. With the actual release of the iPad itself coming up, we just wanted to give you some advance notice of what’s coming. We think you’re going to like it.

Apple started taking orders this morning (March 12) at 7:30AM CST for the new iPad. The WiFi version ships in time to arrive at your home on April 3, while the WiFi+3G version ships in late April.

You can place your order at store.apple.com. The 16GB WiFi version is $499. 32GB is $599 and 64GB is $699. Add $130 to each of those prices if you want 3G. You’ll have to pay for a 3G data plan separately, of course.

As we’ve said before, we don’t talk about what may or may not be under development. But you can expect some new iPad-specific features in PocketBible that we think will make it an even more compelling application than it is on the iPhone and rival what we offer in PocketBible for Windows. We’ll get more details out as we get closer to a ship date.

And don’t worry about migrating your notes, highlights, bookmarks, and reading progress to the iPad. Before it arrives, we’ll have an update that will allow you to synchronize or backup your data to our server, then synchronize or restore it to PocketBible on your new iPad. Of course this feature will also let you move any user-created data you had on your old Palm or Windows Mobile phone to your iPhone assuming you have PocketBible for Windows running on your desktop or laptop. You’ll sync your Palm or WinMob phone to PocketBIble for Windows, then sync PocketBible for Windows with our server. Then sync your iPhone with the server and you’re done.

So if you want to be the first on your block to own an iPad, get your order placed as soon as you can. By the way, you can ignore the temptation to pay for expedited shipping. Your new iPad will be shipped in time to arrive on April 3 and the shipping is free. The 2-3 shipping option applies only to the accessories you order with your iPad, which will ship later.

We’ve just released our final volume of the IVP New Testament Commentary Series: 2 Peter & Jude. This completes the 20-volume set.

The IVP New Testament Commentary Series offers readable commentary and reliable research on the New Testament. Great for those who teach or preach!

20 volumes, each available separately - $7.99 to $9.99 each. Or as a set for $129.99.

Available for iPhone/iPod Touch, Windows Mobile, Windows PC and Palm OS.

If you’ve previously purchased the series, this last volume is available to you at no charge by logging into your Laridian account and redownloading the IVP New Testament Series file. Simply reinstall to get the new volume included as part of the series.

Apple announced its long awaited iPad tablet device last week, and like you we were all anxious to see it.

What we’re being told is that it will run most iPhone apps unmodified. They will only take up about 1/4 of the screen, since the iPad screen is significantly larger than the iPhone. We don’t have any reason to believe PocketBible won’t run on the iPad, but we’re doing what we can to make sure.

While the SDK has been distributed to developers, it is only a beta and we are unable to build what Apple calls “universal apps” that will allow the same binary file to run on either an iPhone or an iPad. We also don’t have access to pre-production devices, so we can only run in the emulator that is built into the development tools. So we have some reason to believe that PocketBible will work as-is but can’t be absolutely sure at this point because we’ve never seen it run on a device.

There are some simple user interface changes we’ll be making in the short term to better take advantage of the iPad’s capabilities. In addition, there are some new capabilities in the iPad version of the OS that aren’t yet in the iPhone that we’d like to investigate — what Apple calls “Core Text” is at the top of that list.

It’s not obvious from the end-user point of view, but PocketBible pushes the limits of the iPhone’s abilities when it comes to displaying text. PocketBible is exactly the type of application that the iPhone OS was not designed for — that is, an app that does sophisticated text rendering. The new iPad, with its bigger screen and potentially more usable keyboard, invites applications like word processors that need sophisticated layout capabilities. PocketBible is in that camp.

This is not unique to the iPhone. Windows Mobile also lacks key text rendering capabilities that are present in its big brother, Windows on the desktop. For example, it’s not possible in Windows Mobile to accurately measure the width of a piece of text as it will be displayed on the screen. You can almost do it, but it doesn’t work right for bold and italics. So we’ve had to implement our own functions for this.

We could probably get into a lengthy discussion of whether or not this form factor is something the public will accept. I’ve seen everything from people who want it to replace their phone (assuming they can keep from knocking themselves unconscious when they answer it) to those who point out that tablet computers with full-blown operating systems have failed to capture consumer attention, which causes one to question whether a similar device with a mobile OS stands a chance.

That said, one of my long-standing complaints about devices such as the Sony Reader and the Kindle are that they don’t allow any kind of third-party software. (Or at least until recently when Amazon announced a “Kindle Developer’s Kit” for Kindle.) My Kindle is great, but it’s horrible for Bible study because the software simply doesn’t have the features you need to access an integrated Bible library, or even perform moderately sophisticated searches. Viewed as a souped-up e-book reader, the iPad may stand a chance. While it’s hard to imagine anyone beating Amazon’s selection of e-books for Kindle, if anyone has a chance of doing so it would be Apple.

The iPad could actually be the perfect electronic Bible study device. It’s just portable enough to be truly portable, while being large enough to facilitate convenient cross-referencing between titles.

From a developer’s standpoint there’s not a whole lot to complain about. It’s like a big iPhone, so everything we’ve learned about iPhone and Mac programming transfers painlessly to the iPad. We’re not crazy about the shortsightedness of some of their new features (”split views” being at the top of that list for you programmers) but we’ve also seen initial shortsightedness in the iPhone OS get repaired in subsequent releases. Unfortunately, like the similar issues that arose years ago on the Palm OS, by the time the official solutions are released everyone has already coded their own work-arounds to meet user demand.

What all this boils down to is that we fully plan to support the iPad and in fact enhance PocketBible over time to take advantage of unique iPad features. We think it could be an ideal Bible study platform for those who have the spare change to invest in one.

A few weeks ago (around the turn of the year), I answered a technical support query about whether any of our eTracts for the Pocket PC had been published for the iPhone. They haven’t been, so it was an easy question to answer. However, that question planted a seed, which sprouted and leads to today’s announcement: our RomansRoad eTract is now available for the iPhone.

RomansRoad eTract is a Scripture-based discussion guide to help you share your Christian faith. Based upon the familiar “Romans Road” series of verses from the book of Romans, this witnessing tool uses a unique question and answer format to provide a framework to help you share your faith. As each new key verse is presented, probing questions and explanatory answers are also provided to help you both explain the Scripture and answer common questions that arise.

For example, Romans 3:23 states that all have sinned. Upon presenting this key verse, the RomansRoad eTract provides the following questions:

• What is sin?
• Who has sinned?
• Does that include you and me?
• Not convinced that you are a sinner?

Answers to these questions are provided using everyday language.

This format — presentation of a key verse with concise, clear commentary in a question and answer format — provides a framework allowing you to share your faith while personalizing your discussion. Since it is discussion-based, you are able to listen and respond to the questions you receive, and be sensitive to God’s leading.

An individual page or all pages can be emailed, facilitating both further consideration and follow-up at a later date.

If you find the RomansRoad eTract a helpful resource in sharing your faith, we’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment on this article and/or post a review on the App Store with your experiences.

Find It On the App Store

The RomansRoad eTract is available on the App Store for 99 cents. Click here to go to the iTunes App Store now.

The RomansRoad eTract is fully stand-alone. It does not require PocketBible nor any other Laridian product. So, even if you use some one else’s Bible software on your iPhone (though you should try PocketBible, it’s free!), you can still use the RomansRoad eTract.

Some More of the Backstory

I first wrote and published this eTract for use on the Pocket PC. Since then, the text has been revised and expanded several times. I’d estimate that this is really the fourth or fifth edition of the text. I’ve published previous editions in paper format as well.

Last week, I posted the RomansRoad eTract icon on our facebook “fan page” and invited guesses about the program. Several were close, and a few were exactly right!

If you follow me on Twitter, this is what I have been referring to as my “#newsecretiphoneproject”.

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Sample Screen

Preferences

A few months ago Verizon started running some pretty obvious ads for those of us who use both Verizon and AT&T. They compared their 3G coverage map to AT&T’s. AT&T came up wanting.

AT&T fired back, saying that their 3G network covers 97% of cell phone users, and that it’s faster. They further brag that AT&T users can surf the Web while they’re on the phone.

I’m sitting here this morning using a Verizon 3G modem connected to my MacBook, writing code for the iPhone in my pocket. On a whim I went to speedtest.net on both the Mac and iPhone to see what the results would be.

Speedtest.net on the iPhone took me to the App Store to download their free native app. On the Mac, Speedtest.net runs in your Web browser. I downloaded the app to my iPhone and made sure both the Mac and iPhone were connecting to the same server in Kalamazoo, MI.

The results of three tests tests on each device are summarized below:

AT&T has an upload advantage, but most mobile Web surfing and email activity depends on download speed, not upload speed. Furthermore, AT&T’s overall speed (average of upload and download) is lower. So even if you did an equal amount of uploading and downloading (which would be very unusual), Verizon is faster.

This seems to undermine AT&T’s argument that their network, while covering very little of the geographic area of the US, is faster. It appears to me based on my one sample location (Coffee Emporium in Hiawatha, IA) that this is not true.

And while I may be able to surf and talk at the same time with my iPhone, if you read the fine print you’ll find out that only applies when you’re in 3G coverage. The one time I’ve needed to do it in the last two years I was not in 3G coverage and therefore couldn’t surf while I was on the phone.

The iPhone is a great device and if you live in certain areas of the country very close to an ocean you have great coverage. And the connection speed, while slower than Verizon, is certainly adequate for mobile Web and email activities. I really like my iPhone and recommend them to everyone. However, AT&T is its weak spot.

We’ve known about the NET Bible since its beginnings, and several years ago we licensed the NET Bible for use in our products. We knew the Bible had extensive notes but didn’t think that would be a problem for PocketBible.

We put one of our employees to work on it and after several months it became clear that the challenges it presented were going to be greater than the potential revenue we could gain from it would justify. The problems were related to converting the original language references in the notes from a variety of proprietary fonts into the standard Unicode notation we use in PocketBible. I don’t recall all the details but do recall a meeting in which we decided to just drop the project.

A year or so later we heard from a programmer who had extensive experience with the NET Bible and wondered why we hadn’t yet made it available. I explained the issues and he said he’d be happy to tackle it. I sent him everything he needed to tag the NET Bible and notes for PocketBible. He asked a couple questions over the next week or two, but then disappeared. The NET Bible had taken another victim.

Then last November I heard from David Richards. David is a long-time Laridian customer and a fan of the NET Bible. He had been experimenting with our BookBuilder program, which allows anyone to create reference materials that are compatible with PocketBible, and wondered if we had plans to publish the NET Bible. I told him the story and warned him of the bodies it had left in its path. He seemed undeterred, so we came to terms on a price for his work and he set out to work on it. I figured that would be the last we’d hear from him, and went about my business.

Surprisingly, when I heard from David it wasn’t to ask questions. It was to give me samples from what he had gotten done. Before long he had made it through all 60,000 notes. We ran a brief test with a group of testers left over from PocketBible for iPhone and after just one update the NET Bible was ready to ship.

I wanted to tell you David’s story for a couple reasons. First is that we’re pretty excited about finally having the NET Bible and know what an accomplishment it was for him. He deserves a little recognition for his efforts.

Second is that David’s is a story we’ve seen play out a couple of times in the past and we’d like to see it happen more often. We’ll be releasing a collection of reference books in the next couple of weeks that were tagged by another customer who got interested in BookBuilder a year or two ago and has since tagged a couple of projects for us after doing some of his own. Our A.W. Pink, F.B. Meyer, and Andrew Murray collections were tagged by a customer, as was the Dake Study Bible Notes.

Of course tagging books isn’t for everyone. It usually requires extensive use of what’s called “pattern matching”, “regular expression”, or “grep” search-and-replace operations to convert a book from whatever format it might be to begin with into our HTML-based format for BookBuilder. You need to have a head for details and it doesn’t hurt to have a little programming background.

David and each of these other taggers are being compensated in some way for their work. We’d love to add you to our list of available taggers for new projects. You can get the standard BookBuilder program for $29.99 and see if it’s something you want to try. We have an inexhaustible list of books that need to be tagged. Maybe you have a favorite commentary series or reference title you’d like to see in PocketBible. Rather than wait for us to get around to it, why not volunteer to do it yourself?

Feel free to contact me directly if you’re interested: craigr@laridian.com.

We have released the often-requested Bible translation: The NET BIBLE for use with PocketBible for iPhone/iPod Touch, Windows Mobile or Windows PC.

The NET BIBLE is a completely new translation of the Bible from the best currently available Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. The translation has been optimized for readability and elegance and is accompanied by over 60,000 Translator Notes that provide additional accuracy and insight into the meaning of the original languages.

The NET BIBLE sells for $14.99. For more information, click on your desired platform:

iPhone/iPod Touch | Windows Mobile | Windows PC

PrayerPartner for the iPhone has been updated to version 1.0.2, and is now available on the Apple App Store. Search for “PrayerPartner” in the App Store, or try this link.

This is a free update for all PrayerPartner owners. If you’ve previously purchased PrayerPartner, then either iTunes or your iPhone (or iPod touch) will notify you that the update is available.

This version fixes a rather obvious problem with the PIN support added in version 1.0.1. Embarrassingly, the entry page for the PIN included a “back” button that allowed the PIN entry to be skipped entirely. Sometimes the most difficult to see bugs are the most obvious ones.

(A friend’s recent Facebook status update: “Apparently, the best spot during Hide and Seek is to sit on the couch. The children, ages 3 and 5, looked right at me as they told their mother, sitting next to me, that they can’t find me.”)

If you’re on Facebook, you can become a fan of PocketBible. Just sign up here: www.facebook.com/PocketBible. PocketBible fans on Facebook sometimes receive special offers and are among the first to receive our announcements. Plus, by being a fan, you share your appreciation of the Bible and PocketBible with your Facebook friends in a non-threatening way.

If you Twitter, you can follow us at www.twitter.com/PocketBible. Our official tweats sometimes include special offers, sometimes announcements, and occasionally some “insider” information. Plus, when you think we say something interesting, you can retweat to let your followers know.

Additionally, you can follow some of our staff via their personal accounts for some more insight into what we are working on (or our quirky opinions about life). The PocketBible Twitter account follows some of our staff, so you can easily find us from the PocketBible page at Twitter. Just click the “following” link.

2010 is just around the corner.  A new year.  New beginnings.  A fresh start.  There are so many opportunities with a new year.  To begin again . . . or just begin.  And if one of your beginnings is a desire to start your new year drawing closer to God, what a great time to begin a new daily devotional.  In the month of December, Laridian has released 5 new devotional titles: two from popular preacher and teacher John MacArthur, a new devotional for women, written by women of faith, a heart challenging compilation of select readings from John Calvin’s Commentary of the Psalms and Daily with the King: A Devotional for Self-Discipleship. 

To me, you can’t go wrong with John MacArthur.  His teaching is always sound, insightful and purposeful.  And these two volumes of Daily Readings from the Life of Christ are no exception.  Daily Readings from the Life of Christ, Vol. 1 follows Jesus’ first year of ministry.  From his public baptism and start of his ministry, through His teaching with parables, John MacArthur walks us daily through the first 13 chapters of Matthew and Jesus’ earthly ministry.  I can’t think of a better teacher in the ways of God and the Christian life than our Savior.  Even though many entries are stories Christians know by heart, there is new learning and revelation each time we meditate and study God’s word.  Circumstances of life change, and though God’s word never does; how God uses His word to touch us and teach us in those circumstances is always new and refreshing.

Daily Readings from the Life of Christ, Vol. 2 goes deeper into the miracles of Jesus and his confrontations with the Jewish leaders by focusing on the Gospels of Matthew and John.  I especially enjoyed the days covering the calling of the Disciples and their commission.  MacArthur gives at least one day to each disciple, giving insight into who each man was and how each man’s character traits were chosen and used by Jesus.  It is interesting to see how Jesus used men with characteristics just like mine and people I know, both good and “bad”, to bring about the spreading of his gospel and the furthering of his kingdom.  For example, my 10 year old son can inundate me with questions.  Sometimes I think he spends his day trying to think of questions to ask me, but when I read the account of Jesus’ calling of Peter, I realized in reading that paragraph, that Peter was a lot like my son.  He is described as “constantly asking questions . . . and though many were superficial and immature . . . self-centered and off the mark . . . .”Jesus used Peter’s questioning as opportunities to train him in leadership.  To be the leader of the apostles he intended Peter to be.  As a parent, I have learned, that reacted to in the proper manner, my son’s questions can be an opportunity for me to mold him into a proper leader (a character trait he naturally exhibits).  Will he be a Peter?  Only the God who has called him to himself can answer that, but I now better understand how my reactions to his questions can train him, having either a positive or negative impact on the man he will become.

I can’t leave this review without touching for just a moment on Daily Seeds from Women Who Walk in Faith.  As I skimmed through the pages while preparing this for PocketBible, I was drawn to the stories of the women in this devotional.  As a daughter, wife, mother and friend, there is much I can learn from these women who have experienced life’s trials and joys and the lessons they have to share. 

As this new year approaches, there are many ways we can begin anew.  No beginning will enrich your life more than a new beginning with the Savior.  So whether you have resolved to begin a daily quiet time with God, or are looking for a new devotional to continue your existing quiet times, I highly encourage you to take a look at what’s new from Laridian.