Please note the date on this post. Read our more recent posts on the iPhone for more up-to-date information.
Since the whole idea for this product kind of grew out of these blog articles and comments, it seems only fair that we post some kind of a progress report. So…
We’ve posted a short video of me demonstrating iPocketBible on the iPhone. It’s at www.iPocketBible.com. Choose either the WMV version or the QuickTime version. If your browser is set up right it should start playing without waiting to download the entire file. Otherwise you’re in for a short wait.
The screen shot to the left was actually done using Safari on a PC. It looks similar, but not exactly like, the program running on an iPhone. For one thing, on the PC there is a scrollbar on the right. Actually I thought I photoshopped that scrollbar out of there but I see now it’s still there. Oh, well. Pretend it’s not.
This product has been interesting to work on. When you sit back and think about it you think, “This shouldn’t take more than a week.” Then you start in on it and there seems to be no shortage of obstacles. Perhaps the biggest is maintaining some kind of login and subscription management system. The idea is that you’ll pay a nominal fee for access to the program and you’ll have access to all the content (Bibles and reference books) you already own for PocketBible, MyBible, or our other readers. And if you want to add a Bible or a commentary you just purchase it and it shows up on your iPhone. That’s taking some effort to put together.
None of the content actually resides on your phone. But when running iPocketBible, especially in a WiFi environment, you won’t notice much of a difference in speed as compared to, say, MyBible running on your Treo.
I’m working on notes, bookmarks, and highlights right now. That’s another harder-than-expected effort. We have to store all your user-created data somewhere on our server and not get it mixed up with everyone else’s.
So enjoy the preview; I’ll try to shoot another video soon with even more features, then hopefully have the product up for you to check out Real Soon Now. Hopefully the preview will keep you entertained for a while. And perhaps keep your mind off asking what else is coming from Laridian in the near future. Stay tuned!
I am sooo thrilled!!! I particularly LOVE that I will still be able to access my library of already purchased books (I used Palm OS for many years and invested a LOT of money in your products that I thought would be useless when I got an iphone). That is really friendly and nice of you guys. One bit of feedback on UI… the toolbar at the bottom isn’t very sleek/apple-like/iphone-esq (sorry for the made up words!). Particularly the primary color buttons reminds me of children’s building blocks, or at least more like windows mobile than an apple product. Other than those minor things, I think you have really done a great job of this and can’t wait to try it out. I would love to be a beta tester if you have openings! Thanks so much for doing this project.
I can tell you haven’t spent a lot of time running Windows Mobile. It has a menu across the bottom (where it belongs on a phone, not across the top where the screen is blocked by your hand whenever you use it). It has no colorful buttons. It’s all menus and dialog boxes like the desktop version of Windows.
There’s no iPhone UI standard (because there are no iPhone apps) so there’s not much to go on. If it becomes a stumbling block for people it’s trivial to change them all to standard gray or iPhone powder blue.
Anyway glad to hear you’re interested in the product.
I am not sure if I am excited about this. I have been wanting a new iphone, but am stuck with sprint for another year under my contract. And I kept telling myself that I would miss reading the bible on my phone if I got the iphone. It is the only application that the iphone doesn’t have that I would want it to have. So, now you are making me want to get an iphone even more. Thanks for your work on this.
When,when,when,when,when
Any chance that in the future the package will reside in the memory of the iPhone? I am at times…ie in church without access to the EDGE system.
Kindest regards…kc
Marc: Soon, soon, soon.
Kay: It’s unlikely that we’ll create a native iPhone app. Assuming they open the phone up (which is anybody’s guess at this time) then we’re faced with the issue of having to write a Bible program that will only run on one platform. We’ve found from experience that that is an iffy proposition.
The real reason we can justify an iPhone app is that it gives us a Web-based app that will eventually run on all Web-enabled phones. So going native on the iPhone is actually the opposite of our strategy.
It would be possible to get just the text of the Bible onto the phone by pre-loading the cache, but that rules out searching, annotations, highlights, etc. For that you need some processing power somewhere, not just text.
I’m surprised to hear that you don’t have AT&T coverage at your church. I thought they were supposed to have some kind of great network.
Kay: We have the same issue in our church (the walls don’t really allow for good cellular signals). I setup a wifi access point to provide free Internet to anyone in the main meeting place (sanctuary/auditorium). I use a simple service like OpenDNS.com to help ensure inappropriate content is inaccessible (and with a static IP address (on the WAN/Internet side) you can actually customize quite a bit of what a user has access to). The downside is that if the user is technical-minded they’ll know to use their own DNS servers. But it’s a good solution for us and I’m sure many others. I also have the luxury of two things: broadband Internet at church, and a tech-loving senior pastor (also a Laridian customer).
Thank you for your work on this project, and especially for letting me know about it. I’m still trying to justify the spendy purchase of my iPhone and this sure helps! Can’t wait. Keep us posted.
I’m sure I am going to reveal my tech ignorance here, but since the iphone is both a internet device and an Ipod, and since Laridian already has the capibility of an ipod version of the Bible, could not a ipod version of the resources we use serve as a backup when acess to the internet is unavailable? I only noted one ipod version of the Bible available–are any more planned? How much space do they take up?
Our iPod product contains the text of the Bible in iPod Notes format and the audio in MP3 format. The iPhone can play the MP3 audio, but it does not include the Notes application so the text would not be available.
We’re planning on doing more iPod Bibles. I have one sitting right here on my desk that is close to going out but the desktop and iPhone products are ahead of it in line. We have another that is in contract negotiation.
The iPod Bibles take up a lot of MP3 space, maybe around 3-4 GB. The text is only about 5MB.
Frankly, I would be more interested in the text versions. My Choice would be the good old KJV and one of the more literal Modern Translations. With that and the iBible I could duplicate 90% of my old PDA usage. Plus I still have the PDA for serious home study which I don’t tend to do at Church. Just curious–According to your vision, how much of the functionality of Pocket 3, on a IPAQ would you expect iBible to duplicate? Frankly as I continue to configure all the features of iphone I am more and more impressed. That is rare–I tend to by into the hype and then be let down. The IBible will be a real blessing. I echo all who thank you for your work–this is much more than any other software provides–food for the soul. It is easy to waste time on temporal things, but can anyone ever feel bad for having lost track of time when exploring the riches of His word?
Here are some features of PocketBible for Pocket PC that we won’t be duplicating on the iPhone, at least in the initial version of the program:
* Greek and Hebrew fonts (not present on the iPhone)
* Clipboard functions (iPhone has no clipboard)
* Multiple windows
* Boolean searching (we do ALL/ANY/EXACT instead of AND/OR/etc.)
* Limit searches to highlighted verses; limit searches to bookmarked verses
* Devotional reading tracking (keeping track of what you’ve read)
* Bookmark categories
These are listed in order of most difficult to least difficult to duplicate on the iPhone. Boolean searching is not an iPhone limitation but rather is a limit that’s brought on by the database we use. It’s significantly faster to do the searches we currently support on the iPhone than to implement a full AND/OR/NOT/XOR search with nested parenthesis, wild cards, etc.
The iPhone excels at Web browsing. Its phone capabilities are average to below average. But it has a great Google Maps implementation, nice iPod features, and a terrific Web browser. If you have the money to spend it’s a fun phone.
Craig, maybe a little inspiration. This search engine progressively loads search results as you scroll down.
http://nofoodhere.com
Not sure if it’s doable on iPhone, but possibly. On the minus side, the site crashed Safari 2.x for me… but it did work on Firefox. Hopefully that sort of thing is doable on iPhone… maybe you’ve already gotten past this point though.
Craig, any idea of a launch date yet? I am quite excited to get this addition to my iPhone!
I was hoping to have the iPhone product done by now but we’ve had to dedicate more resources to our desktop product than I thought we would. In particular, the work that needs to be done on the server to support placing orders for iPocketBible is being delayed by needs related to PocketBible for Windows.
Right now it’s looking like PocketBible for Windows will ship first, then iPocketBible. I’m guessing before the end of the month at this point.
Soooo…it sounds like the development work on the product is about done? Any possibility of updating the sneak peak? Does it look any different? Even my wife is excited about this product.
There are a few little changes since the last update but a lot of the work we’ve been doing in the last two weeks is on the server side, both e-commerce and the book database. I was waiting to update the video until there were a few more cosmetic changes done that we know we want to do but just haven’t done yet.
Be patient. Good things come to those who wait.
Hurry…hurry….hurry!!! I am awaiting the purchase of my iphone until this software comes out for it since I use my phone and my Bible as one. I’m really wanitng it bad…..hehehe!
Please keep me posted when you guys make this happen, thanks and God Bless
Can’t wait