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. |
I have owned Laridian bibles from Palm OS. A few days ago, I downloaded the earlier version to my IPAD from apps store (registered in Singapore).
This morning, I saw the update notice for this latest version. Very excited to see that it finally supports IPAD in full-screen. When I went to the apps store to download the update, it said that it was not supported in the country.
This is quite strange since the apps is listed in the Singapore Apps Store, and I’ve downloaded it just a few days ago – under the same id. Is the update only for US market?
Thanks, Craig, for the link to the Publishing page. Now I understand the process. I was thinking of using a user-created commentary to record my notes so I could see them in a split screen and scroll through them. But perhaps just putting in traditional notes would be a better way to go. Still, would it be a pain for you guys if I updated my commentary once every couple of weeks? As I add notes I would want to be continually updating it. I assume you would just overwrite it on your server?
Andi: Contact Apple for problems with the App Store. We tell them to put it in all countries. After that it’s up to them.
Tim: As you saw on the “publishing” page, we’ll build and post your updates no more frequently than once a month. We have customers who send us an update once a month like clockwork. There’s another that is quarterly. So no problem sending us updates as long as you stick with the once-a-month rule. And also note you need the Pro version of BookBuilder, not the Standard version.
Craig, I missed the once a month rule. Yes, that would work. Okay, thanks for the help. And thanks for a great product!!
Craig, Apple has made PocketBible available to all countries but unfortunately the updates are not because officially iPAD is only launched in the U.S. Then, why does it get listed in apps store worldwide in the first place?
My workaround is to delete the apps and download again from my US apps. store account. Works fine after that. Hope it helps others in similar situation.
The new iPad application is very good. I think the following enhancements would make it better:
1. Allow the Toolbox to be hidden regardless of orientation. Seeing it off to the side in landscape view is distracting and a waste of real estate if the Toolbox is displayed when not needed.
2. Allow the screen to be split horizontally when 2 panes are shown. Pocket Bible for Pocket PC got me hooked on working this way. A horizontal split would greatly improve readability in landscape mode.
3. Allow the toolbar to remain in one position and not follow the home button. I’d like to keep it at the bottom regardless of orientation. And, I believe keeping it in place would be more consistent with other iPad applications.
Great work overall. Thanks for supporting the Apple mobile platforms.
Ken: Thanks for the suggestions. The toolbar and toolbox move together. They don’t stay on the bottom in landscape mode, nor can the toolbox be hidden in this mode, because the reason the toolbox even exists is to use the space that is left over on the side when you rotate the device into landscape mode without changing the width of the text. This is per Apple’s human interface guidelines for the iPad, which recommend that you don’t just re-lay out your text when the device rotates, but rather use the additional space on the sides to add controls that enhance the usability of the app.
So the default behavior is to hide the toolbox in portrait and only show it in landscape. The necessary option is to even show it in portrait mode. If we strictly followed the guidelines it wouldn’t be visible in that mode. See the Notes app for an example of The iPad Way.
Rather than give you a setting that allows you to tell us which side to put the toolbox/toolbar on in landscape and whether to put it on the top or bottom in portrait, we use the orientation of the device as a way to decide where to put them. It’s actually quite clever (I can say that because it wasn’t my idea).
In general we stay away from short, wide text (horizontal windows) as an aid to readability. However, we may consider giving you other ways to configure panes in a future update.
Switched from PalmOS to iPod Touch. Everything I had purchased and downloaded on my old Palm LifeDrive was ready and waiting to be loaded on my iPod. No repurchase necessary. Software is still easy to use and easy to navigate. By far the best mobile Bible software around.
I have been using the new update for the pass week now and I would just like to say a big THANK YOU to you both. You have done a great job.
The interface is too cluttered – look at some of the book applications for the ipad. You need to have a pop-up menu and have the screen clear.
Matt: You’re probably just looking at the screen shots, which are intentionally designed to show off features.
By default, in landscape mode there’s a toolbar across the bottom and a title bar across the top. Unlike “some of the book applications for the iPad” it’s more important to know where you are in our app. The fact that you’re reading page 275 in your John Grisham novel means nothing. But you almost always want to know what verse you’re reading, so the title bar defaults to being on.
Both of these items can optionally be removed so that the program uses the entire screen just like those other book applications.
While there are strong similarities between a program like iBooks and PocketBible, the former really only needs a way to turn pages to be useful. PocketBible would be worthless if that’s all the UI it had. So it needs more controls either always on the screen or available at the touch of a button.
Again, by changing 2-3 settings in the Settings menu you can get pretty much the same appearance as iBooks — all text and no controls — for the times when you want to use our program that way.
Hi Craig, I’ve been using pocket bible extensively since it was released for the iPad. Great tool! Thanks a lot.
In my time using it i’ve come across a couple of ideas that would improve it’s usefulness for me. I’m a youth minister and use this program for personal study, class preparation and would like to be able to use it while teaching classes:
1. For my personal study purposes it would be nice to be able to highlight a word or words rather than having to highlight entire verses. (Also multiple verse highlight would be handy.)
2. Ability to rename highlighters for different purposes would be nice, but is minor concern.
3. The reason it’s awkward to teach from this app: I need the ability to keep a note open and look at surrounding bible verses at the same time. Possibly open the note in a separate window???
4. Also, I don’t think the problem is on your end but: I’m not able to copy verses from your program into Docs2 HD…anyone else having this problem?
Thanks for your responsiveness, I look forward to hearing your feedback.
Micah: 1 & 2 are on the suggestion list for a future release.
3: To keep the note visible while browsing through the Bible, open the note then select the “lock” button in the upper right corner of the toolbox. Now you can move around in the Bible without losing your note.
4. We use the standard iPad pasteboard for our copy/paste operations. I just verified I can paste into the iPad Notes app from PocketBible. if Doc2 HD doesn’t paste our text, then the problem is with them.
Thanks a lot Craig! I had seen the lock button, just hadn’t discovered it’s use. Again, great app.
To users out there: has anyone downloaded the new documents to go app for iPad? Does the copy and paste function work in that app? Also is the integration with dropbox sufficient?
Thanks
Oops, I misspoke,the name of the word processing app that I’ve been using is office2 HD. The workaround for my problem is to paste into notes and then from there copy and paste into office2 HD.
I may switch to documents to go if I find I can copy from pocket bible and paste to documents to go…but hate to purchase a second wordproccesing app.
Thanks again
Hi Micah,
I have not experienced an issue copying from Pocket Bible to D2G. Ps love the fact that I can sync docs via iTunes in D2G(wifi not needed)
@Laridan, my new today iPad, is the fourth different type of device I have had Pocket bible on.
You guys are legends. Well done good and faithful servants.
MattG
Awe, so that’s what the lock button is for. Nifty!
Any plans for either Kindle or Nook support?
The Kindle SDK info we’ve seen rules out using it to create competing book reader software, which is essentially what we’d be doing. So it’s unlikely they’d approve our app. We’ve contacted them and they said they weren’t ready to talk about it.
There isn’t really any information out there with respect to a Nook SDK.
Without any information to go on, we can’t make any kind of a statement with respect to our plans, other than the obvious statement that we currently don’t have any plans to port to either Kindle or Nook, since neither seems to have any plan to let us do it.
Super-cool app. I downloaded it to my iPad, as well as several translations. The side-by-side feature is especially cool. However, one suggestion I have is a reverse-polarization (white text on black) setting. I use this mode frequently on my Kindle app and my YouVersion Bible. I already submitted my suggestion to customer service, though.
Thanks for listening.