Please note the date on this post. Read our more recent posts on the iPhone for more up-to-date information.
If you take a look at the comments you’ll see that our two posts about the iPhone have generated a lot of feedback. This has been one of the most (if not the most) popular topics on the blog.
It’s been quite an interesting phenomena in the industry. Unlike other new product announcements, there were few developers (beyond the big contributors like Google) who were brought into the inner circle and given access to the iPhone in advance. Very little was known about it until recently when developers could actually hold one in their hands.
As it turns out there is no ability to install third-party applications — not even Widgets. The only kind of application you can put on the iPhone is one that is accessible through the Web. Existing Web applications probably work OK on the iPhone, but they’re not optimized for the way its unique (i.e. “quirky”, “smart”, or “retarded” — depending on your perspective) user interface works. A good iPhone app needs to be carefully designed to work around its weak points and take advantage of its strong points.
I suppose if we were to do Bible software for the iPhone we could host it on a site, say iPocketBible.com and people could browse to it from their phone or actually from any desktop, PDA, or phone with an adequate Web browser. iPocketBible.com would have to offer features that you can’t find on existing Web-based Bible sites. And since those sites aren’t optimized for iPhone, iPocketBible.com would be much easier to use.
We’d also have the advantage of content that isn’t available at other Web-based sites. Our licenses with Christian publishers give us the ability to publish more than the public domain “classic” Bibles and reference books you find elsewhere. Sure, there are a few modern Bibles available at those sites, but iPocketBible.com would be able to give you access to commentaries and reference materials that aren’t available elsewhere.
Well as I’ve said many times before, we can’t talk about products that may or may not be under development. If we’re working on it, we’ll neither confirm it nor deny it. If we’re not working on it we’ll neither deny it nor confirm it. But we really appreciate all the interest you’ve shown and the comments you’ve posted regarding the iPhone.
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! I love my iphone. so far I have been using Biblegateway.com. Its great in terms of being able to access many different translations. However I would love something designed specifically for the iphone. My dream features would be:
1. Being able to take notes,highlight, and access them. (maybe store them on a server)
2. Access to as many translations as possible
3. If I’m reading a passage being able to tap a button and access commentarries on that passage.
4. If I’m reading a passage being able to tap a button and access different translations of that passage.
5. Keyword search, Passage search
6. Some kind of Lexicon, being able to access greek and hebrew definitions of words.
7. Being able to flip my finger across the screen and have it flip to the next page of whatever passage I’m reading.
8. Bookmarks
9. Being able to write studies…. i.e. cut and paste verses on Pride or Love along with personal notes and be able to access them on ipoketbible.com (I know iphone doesn’t have a clipboard yet, but word on the street is, it’s coming in the first update this fall.)
I would be willing to pay a reasonable fee. To be honest it might be nice to have these things stored on a server instead of my phone. I know with your other products I could’nt fit all the services you offered that I wanted on my PDA.
I hope this comes to fruition.
Marc
Marc,
Thanks for your comments.
Regarding Greek and Hebrew lexicons: The iPhone supports very limited Greek characters and no Hebrew, and of course there’s no way to install fonts. We find this disappointing but if we were to implement something for the iPhone at http://www.ipocketbible.com we’d probably leave the Greek and Hebrew characters in place and let the iPhone “catch up” to us. That is, once it has better Greek and Hebrew support it would just start working.
Regarding flipping your finger
atacross your iPhone: Web-based apps don’t actually get to interact with any of the UI elements. Whatever you can do in the Web browser is what you get. So all the normal scrolling motions might work but we couldn’t define any custom gestures or redefine the actions of existing gestures.Thanks again for your comments.
Craig
Hi,
I bought a electronic bible for ipod recently, but i can’t connect at your server.
My account works, but the link “download” doesn’t connect.
If possible to send me by mail.
Please
Thanks !
Sébastien
This is great–I decided that whether or not I purchase an iPhone is solely contingent upon whether or not good Bible software is available for it. The fact that you can’t add software to the iPhone is certainly a bit of a headscratcher. I currently use a Treo 650, and while it’s completely boring in comparison, I know that I always have access to my favorite NLT bible thanks to Laridian. I’d gladly pay for access to iPocketBible, and I’m so thankful that you guys do what you do.
Matt,
Thanks for your confidence. Wait ’til you see it. I think you’ll be impressed.
Craig
Are you guys looking for beta testers? I am a current user of you Windows Mobile software and have recently purchased an iPhone for development use at my day job. I don’t know if it is a plus or a minus but I am an application developer by trade working on Windows, Linux, and OS X platforms. I do desktop, web, and server based development (C#, VB, Java, and a little C++.) I will most likely be a user of this system when it opens up and would be happy to help it along in some way (and very happy to have a good bible reader on my iPhone.) Feel free to drop an email or post here if you are going to have a beta program that has openings.
Thanks and keep up the good work.
Hi Robert,
The beauty of a Web-based app is that it can be changed fairly easily and deployed to all users. So whatever feedback we get from users can be used to make the program better and everyone benefits. This minimizes the need for a formal beta. Also we want to go live as fast as possible.
With this in mind it’s unlikely we’ll do a beta. But thanks for your interest and keep watching for news.
Craig
Can I put in a request for Memorize functionality too? I use it daily on my 8525 and would really like to see it on the iPhone. Any hints as to a release date?
Take a look at tiddlywiki.com for ideas on just how application like you can make a website. TW is a single file wiki, no server required, that said – there is some cool work on the server side of things – like getting content asynchronously while reading other content.
Too bad you can’t save HTML files – can you cache things locally and under web app control through their extensions?
Paul,
I agree we’ve been writing cool server-based apps on relatively dumb clients for at least 40 years. It’s not difficult to create something that looks nice. And it’s not even that hard to create something that has nice functionality even under the hardware constraints of a device like the iPhone. The issues are more practical. For example:
I think the look of iPocketBible will be pleasing. The concern is if people can get it out of their heads that it’s NOT a native app so when it does something unusual that can be easily explained as an artifact of running in the browser, can the average user understand it?
For example, our iPocketBible program for iPod limits the amount of text that can be downloaded to the iPod at any one time. This has nothing to do with us — it’s due to the dumb way the iPod Notes app is designed. In fact, we provide a really nice program for moving text up and down to mitigate the problems caused by these limitations. However, some users blame *us* for not doing a better job of implementing iPocketBible on the iPod. They simply ignore or don’t understand the implications of the limitations under which we’re working.
So the question is, will iPhone users put up with the dumbness of the iPhone in certain areas? For example, to scroll our text requires a “two-finger scroll” action. This is a normal part of the way the iPhone works but is different than what users are used to seeing on Web sites. Will we get “blamed” for not recognizing the single-finger scroll, even though all scrolling is actually handled by the iPhone and we don’t see it at all? We’ll see.
Craig
Craig,
My iPhone seems to scroll fine on web pages with a single finger. Are you saying there is something about the iPocketBible for iPhone program that will require us to scroll differently than in any other web app?
Just as I feared.
No, I’m saying that iPocketBible will scroll just like every other Web site you go to that contains text in a <div> tag that scrolls behind other CSS elements, or any site that has large textarea input blocks that can scroll independently from the page they’re on.
You wanted this thing to be application-like. So that’s what you get. Otherwise the UI elements you expect to be firmly fixed in place (like toolbars and such) would scroll with the text and you’d have to scroll to the top or bottom of long sections of text to access them.
It’s really not bad. Browse to this site from your iPhone and enter a long comment here in this text box. Enter enough lines that it doesn’t fit in this box. Dismiss the keyboard and try to scroll just this box with one finger. When you do you’ll scroll the whole screen. Try two fingers. When you do that you’ll scroll just this box.
In iPocketBible the text occupies a much larger area than this box, so it’s easier to get both fingers in the right spot to make it work.
If you enter a lot of garbage here, just don’t press “Submit Comment”.
Thanks!
Craig
Follow up for those interested in two-finger scrolling. Here’s an article about it:
http://www.iphonehints.com/hint/safari/2007/07/17/two-finger-scrolling-text-boxes
It’s a Mac laptop thing. Those of us who use PCs just move the mouse cursor into the text area and scroll. Mac laptop users apparently have to do something different to scroll text boxes than Web pages. It involves two fingers. I don’t know if there are other gestures involving other limbs and appendages, as I’m not a Mac guy.
However I’m sure it’s all quite intuitive, cuz hey, it’s a Mac.
Craig
I must say that I was somewhat upset by your first comments on this blog regarding the iPhone. The tenor of the comments, seemed TO ME to intimate that since you could not figure out how you could make money from the iPhone, you decided to dis it. I have used Laridian software on my Sony Clie and other Palm units, and found it to be very usable. I came here first to look a web app for my iPhone. Instead of finding something, all I found was negative comments. I personally believe that God intended for His Word to be free; however, I am not adverse to someone being rewarded for some well written software, or web application. (I have developed websites, and I know how much work is involved.) I do not see why you could not make a web application, and set up a password system and charge a one-time or monthly fee for setup. I pay for Webshots and for eMusic, a monthly fee. Because of your initial comments, I went elsewhere and found an excellent site with a complete bible tools interface, with notes. I have looked, and due to the quality of the app, I would gladly donate, but can not find any way to do so. I hope that you will reconsider the iPhone, but remember I can’t recall anywhere in the bible where God says: “Go thee and make a profit from distributing My Word”. May God bless all who read His Word.
Robert Newman
Robert,
Let me start right out by saying you’ve completely misunderstood my comments regarding the iPhone. You assumed our concern about the iPhone’s inability to install third-party apps was because we wouldn’t be able to make money by selling software for the iPhone. If you re-read my posts on this topic you’ll find that wasn’t even mentioned.
The issue was not whether we’d be able to sell products for the iPhone but rather whether we’d be able to put a product on the iPhone at all. Remember at the time these articles were written, going back to January, nobody had seen an iPhone and all we had were vague indications that they may not support installing any apps. If you can’t install an app, you can’t have a Bible. That was my point.
Toward the end of the speculation period, just before the phone was released, we got the news that the iPhone WOULD support third-party apps — using Web 2.0 technology. That got people excited — mostly people who didn’t understand what Web 2.0 is. My article on that topic was to try to educate people that all Apple was saying by saying “Web 2.0″ was that the iPhone would have a Web browser.
You’re absolutely right about your observation that we could make a subscription-based Web solution that would run on the iPhone. If you paid attention to what I said in this article to which you posted this comment, you’d see that we are, in fact, developing a product for the iPhone. You just had to follow the links. So I don’t take your comments as a rebuke, as you intended, but rather observe that “great minds think alike”.
I’m glad to hear you found a Web-based Bible program you like that works on the iPhone. Fortunately you haven’t spent anything so hopefully you’ll keep an eye on http://www.iPocketBible.com and will give it a try when we get it up there.
It’s pretty cool. I’m going to try to post some screen shots this weekend.
Craig
P.S. I’ve chosen not to debate your point about the necessity of the Bible being free and not profiting from distribution of it. Suffice to say there’s a solid biblical foundation for what we do and the idea that those who minister the Word should be expected to do so at their own expense is specifically condemned in the New Testament by the apostle Paul as nonsense. If you’d like to discuss that point further send me an email and I’ll send you some scripture to study.