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.

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.

We’ve been notified by Apple that PocketBible has been approved for sale in the App Store. It was fun hearing that it was available in different countries as each local App Store enabled it for their users around the world.

Now that it’s approved I can tell you what the original problem was. It seems the testers at Apple chose not to register the app and download the 39 free books that are included. As a result, when they went to the “Open Book” dialog to open a new book, they saw that only the “Bibles” and “Other Books” categories were active (the former contains the KJV and the latter the help files). They assumed that meant that PocketBible was a “lite” version that did not include the ability to view commentaries, dictionaries, and devotionals, because those categories were grayed out. If true, that would be a violation of the rules of the App Store. We explained that those categories were grayed out because they hadn’t downloaded any commentaries, dictionaries, or devotionals. That must’ve been sufficient because they later approved the app.

If you can give us some positive reviews at the App Store that would be great. If you can’t think of anything nice to say, send your negative comments to me by email so I can fix the program to your satisfaction.

It’s getting hard to pick out our answers to your questions in the comments below. It might be best to send them to Tech Support. Select the Help Desk link on our site.

As I said before, I anticipated we’d have problems getting PocketBible for iPhone through the approval process at the App Store. It’s a complicated app for one thing, and Apple’s approval process has a bit of a checkered reputation for another.

Late last night we were notified that PocketBible was being rejected. The issue was a misunderstanding about how PocketBible works. We immediately submitted an explanation, added details on how they can access “help” from within the program, and resubmitted the application.

I don’t believe this puts us at the end of the approval queue, but even if it does it only took a week for them to look at the program.

So I’m expecting our next rejection within a week.