It’s about time I got around to writing an article about PocketBible 4. It’s been a busy week.

On Tuesday we released an upgrade for both PocketBible for Pocket PC and PocketBible for Windows Mobile Smartphone. In order to reduce confusion about whether you have a Smartphone, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile Classic, Windows Mobile Standard, or Windows Mobile Professional device, we put both programs into one installer and called it PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile. Regardless of the type of Windows Mobile device you have, this product should work for you.

PocketBible for Windows Mobile should work on all Pocket PC’s back to Pocket PC 2000, including PocketPC 2002, 2003, and 2003SE. It works on the new Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices. It works on the old Windows Mobile Smartphone 2002 and 2003. It works on any device that calls itself Windows Mobile Classic, Standard, or Professional.

Our excitement over reducing the confusion was short-lived. The problem now is that since the feature set is different between the two programs (PocketBible 4 for Pocket PC has a few more features than PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile Smartphone, to use the older device names), you all are looking at the features of one and deciding that’s what you want, then you’re confused when you install to your device only to discover you have a different feature set. All I can say is read carefully.

Jeff has written a good article on how to tell the difference between the different devices. It’s really quite simple: Just ask yourself, “Does my device have a touch-screen?” and “Is my device a phone?” Based on those answers, here’s what you have:

• Has a touchscreen, no phone: Windows Mobile Classic (it’s a Pocket PC)
• Has a touchscreen, is a phone: Windows Mobile Professional (it’s a Pocket PC Phone Edition)
• No touchscreen, but it is a phone: Windows Mobile Standard (it’s a Windows Mobile Smartphone)
• No touchscreen, no phone: Ummm… it’s a BlackBerry without a service plan? An iPod? A pencil?

You can tell which version of PocketBible is going to be installed on your device based on whether or not it has a touchscreen. If it has a touchscreen, you’ll get “PocketBible for Windows Mobile Classic/Professional/Pocket PC”. This is the one with the most features. If you don’t have a touchscreen you’ll get “PocketBible for Windows Mobile Smartphone”. This is the one that could be argued is the most improved. The previous version only let you view Bibles and didn’t have the ability to do notes, highlights, or bookmarks. It was pretty basic. The new version gives you access to commentaries, dictionaries, devotionals, and all the rest of our books. Plus it has notes, highlights, bookmarks, and devotional reading progress.

The most common problems we’re seeing are mostly questions related to ordering and installing. For example: “Will PocketBible 4 work with my existing books or do I need to re-purchase or update them?” If you’re upgrading from PocketBible 3, there’s no need to update your books. If you’re upgrading from PocketBible 2 you don’t need to re-purchase your books but you do need to update them. In both cases there are articles in our Knowledgebase to help you upgrade.

We’re hoping to post some videos of PocketBible 4 both as marketing and tutorial tools. I think if you can see features like the customizable toolbar and maximized windows in action it will give you a better idea of how these can improve your Bible study experience.

Finally, a few of you have written to say you didn’t get our upgrade offer. We’ve identified a few thousand customers that did not get our initial email and we’ll be re-sending to those customers on Tuesday. In the meantime, if you want to upgrade just contact tech support to get the appropriate priority code. You can reach tech support through our Web site.

One of the more common questions that we receive related to our mobile PocketBible product line is this: “I have a Windows PDA, but how do I know if it is a Pocket PC or a Smartphone?” This can be especially confusing because some Pocket PCs are also phones, and the marketing names for these devices has changed several times over the last few years. These various devices have been referred to as Windows CE, Palm-size PCs, Handheld PCs, Handheld PC Professionals, Handheld PC 2000s, Pocket PCs, Pocket PC 2002, Smartphones, Smartphone 2002, Pocket PC 2003, Pocket PC 2003 second edition, Smartphone 2003 and now Windows Mobile Classic, Standard, and Professional. Whew. You can understand how some one might be confused. (And I might have even left out a few names!)

While all Windows Mobile devices use a version of the Windows Mobile operating system, there are significant differences between the various classification of devices (Classic, Standard, Professional).

Both the Classic and the Professional devices include a touch-sensitive screen. The Professional device also includes a phone. The Windows Mobile Standard device is also a phone, but does not include a touch-sensitive screen. We tend to call the former devices Pocket PCs and the latter devices Smartphones.

So, how do you know what kind of Windows Mobile device you have? Take this simple quiz:

1. Does your device have both a touch-sensitive screen and a cell phone? If so, then it is a Windows Mobile Professional, which we sometimes also call a Pocket PC.
2. Does your device have a touch-sensitive screen but not have a cell phone? If so, then it is a Windows Mobile Classic, which we sometimes call a Pocket PC.
3. Does your device have a cell phone, but not a touch-sensitive screen? If so, then it is a Windows Mobile Standard, which we sometimes call a Smartphone.

Prior to our recent release of PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile, we packaged our PocketBible program in a Pocket PC version and in a separate Smartphone version. As noted above, it wasn’t uncommon to receive questions about whether a particular device was a Pocket PC or a Smartphone. It also wasn’t uncommon to have someone buy the Smartphone version, but really need the Pocket PC version. While this was easily corrected by contacting our technical support department, it wasn’t always convenient.

However, now with the release of PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile, we have packaged a version of PocketBible designed for the touch-sensitive screen models (Pocket PC, Classic, Professional) along with a version of PocketBible designed for the non-touch-sensitive screen models (Smartphone, Standard). Our setup program will then determine which version to install to your device based on the information about itself that the device supplies to ActiveSync or the Mobile Device Center. While the features between these two versions of PocketBible differ (since the devices themselves are very different), the PocketBible setup program will now automatically determine the correct version of PocketBible to install.

You will still see some of our products referred to as “for Pocket PC”. This simply indicates that that program is available only for the Pocket PC (aka Windows Mobile Classic and Windows Mobile Professional) devices, and not for Smartphones (aka Windows Mobile Standard).

And as time goes on, you may even find that I refer to these handheld computers less and less as Pocket PCs or Smartphones, and more and more by their new name du jour!

With the recent release of PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile, we have also released the PocketBible for Windows Mobile Synchronization Provider. This synchronization provider allows data synchronization between PocketBible for Windows and PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile, including Windows Mobile Classic (Pocket PC), Windows Mobile Standard (Smartphone) and Windows Mobile Professional (Pocket PC Phone).

(This synchronization provider also supports PocketBible 3 for Pocket PC.)

Windows Mobile Standard (Smartphone) owners not already using PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile will need to upgrade to PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile in order to take advantage of these synchronization features.

The PocketBible for Windows Mobile Synchronization Provider is free. Visit the Synchronization Providers product information page for additional details.

Note to users of the PocketBible for Pocket PC Synchronization Provider

The PocketBible for Windows Mobile Synchronization Provider is an update and replacement to the now obsolete PocketBible for Pocket PC Synchronization Provider. If you have previously installed the PocketBible for Pocket PC Synchronization Provider, you can continue to use this synchronization provider. In fact, the PocketBible for Pocket PC synchronization provider will synchronize data with a Windows Mobile Standard (Smartphone) device; it will just refer to that device as a Pocket PC.

If and when you choose to update to the newer PocketBible for Windows Mobile Synchronization Provider, then you should first remove / uninstall the PocketBible for Pocket PC Synchronization Provider before you install the PocketBible for Windows Mobile Synchronization Provider.

Our PocketBible for Windows program has been updated to version 1.009. This update, which coincides with the release of our PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile, provides two bug fixes:

1. After synchronizing personal data, if a highlighted verse was displayed and that highlight was removed due to synchronization, then the verse still showed highlighted until it was returned to at a later time. The highlight is now immediately removed.
2. A bug related to restoring history from a previous session was corrected. This bug affected few people, but those that it did effect had to delete the history and start over. This has been corrected.

This release also contains many “under the hood” changes related to the release of PocketBible 4 for Windows Mobile. You shouldn’t notice any of these changes.

This is a free update. Registered owners of PocketBible for Windows can download the updated version from their Laridian download accounts.

Customers using PocketBible on a USB key can install this update to their hard drive, then copy PocketBible.exe and PocketBible.chm to the USB key.