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.
Sitting on ready to purchase the iPad. It is just a few days until May and it would be great to have the iPad version to download soon. Is there a new update as to when it will be ready?
I have a goal of going to the beta testers at the end of the week.
When will the iPad version be ready? The current iPhone version of pocketbible is not pleasant to the eyes. Olive got the ipad version and I must admit that it looks very nice with the bookshelf and the whole presentation. I am trusting the Laridian will come up with even a better version.
Still waiting for the ipad version of Laridian.
When is that going to happen.
Is there a chance you can have a format like OLIVE TREE with the bookshelf?
Ernest,
You’re commenting on an old post regarding iPad. Read our newer posts. There are videos and screen shots of PocketBible for iPad in the newer posts.
It took Apple about a month to approve Olive Tree’s app from what I hear, though Apple claims they approve 98% of apps within a week. We just submitted ours a week ago. We’re hoping for quick turn-around, but it’s all in Apple’s hands now. There’s nothing we can do to speed it up.
You’ll find in general that we focus on practical features, usability, and consistency. That bookshelf is cute, but that’s about as much as I can say about it. It doesn’t help you extract truth from the text, and that’s what you use Bible software for. That’s not to say we’ll never have a bookshelf metaphor in our app — just that if you want eye candy, pay a dollar for Olive Tree’s Bible reader app. If you want to enhance your walk with Christ, wait a few more days and download the free PocketBible app for iPad.
Actually, I think Jesus is the original “Candy Man” ….. well you know what I mean.
Ernest, I believe we are going to be pleasantly suppressed with the functionality of the new PocketBible for the iPad. I anticipate It will be the “top-of-the-line” Bible Study Software for the iPod as well as the iPhone. Actually, it already is for the iPhone so I don’t expect any less for the iPad.
I too like the looks of the other application you speak of with the cool looking bookshelf and Im sure we’ll see stuff like that with the PocketBible in the future. Right now though, I have to agree that functionality is more important.