A Quick Survey of Bible Apps for Android and iPhone

A Quick Survey of Bible Apps for Android and iPhone

For more detailed study, check into the offerings from Accordance, Laridian, Logos, or Olive Tree. If you already have purchased desktop versions of these programs, then you have access to most of your resources through the apps as well.
There are many free Bible apps from which to choose for both Android and iPhone. Things to keep in mind:

• Note that some of these are actual apps. Some provide access to web versions optimized for mobile devices. If your mobile device has a web browser, you can, of course, always go to some of the better sites' web pages. Check out the Lumina Bible site or the Tyndale House STEP Bible online (also downloadable for Win and Mac).
• Some of them work by 'streaming' Bible versions to you. That is, you must have access to a data stream, and you won't be able to use that version when you don't have data access. The benefit of this approach is that you can often have access to Bible versions for which you would otherwise need to pay. (E.g., for NRSV)
• Most of them will allow you to download some Bibles to your device and use them offline or without a data stream. Many are free. Some you will need to purchase. Some common free and useful Bibles include:
  • English: ESV, NET (without full notes), KJV, Lexham (from Logos), LXX Brenton English (an older English translation of the LXX)
  • Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad codex
  • Greek: SBL Greek New Testament (from SBL and Logos), Westcott-Hort, Scrivener, some also offer the Greek LXX
• Some apps offer a variety of related resources: dictionaries, maps, commentaries, Bible reading plans, etc. One thing to look for are Bible versions that are linked with Strong's. This provides the quick and free way to get some lexical and parsing help. Note that you can find versions in English, Hebrew, and Greek (both LXX and NT) linked to Strong's. Most of them have search capabilities. Some have audio versions.
• Some of them offer all sorts of options for highlighting, social sharing, and note keeping, and often these can be synced with an online version.

With those things in mind, here are some suggestions.

ANDROID

• If you have already purchased the program, check into Laridian, Logos, or Olive Tree.
• Among the free ones I recommend:
  • MySword: This is one of the fastest loading programs, so when I'm in church and want to get to the lesson quickly, I use this one. Lots of free modules including: LXX and an analytical LXX, Brenton's LXX English, NET (no notes), Hebrew Westminster, Lexham, KJV, SBL GNT.
  • YouVersion: Many, many English versions, and many can be downloaded including NET (with notes), CEV, CEB, ESV, Good News, Holman, KJV, Lexham, Message, NIV, NIrV, NLT, etc. Westminster Hebrew, SBL Greek NT; hundreds of other non-English versions.
  • BibleGateway: If you are familiar with the BibleGateway web site, this is an app version of it.
  • Textweek - The Text This Week: Many of you are doubtless familiar with the rich Textweek site. Here's an app that will give access to all its riches.

iPhone / iPad

• If you have already purchased the program, check into Accordance, Laridian, Logos, or Olive Tree.
• Among the free versions, I recommend:
  • YouVersion: Many, many English versions, and many can be downloaded including NET (with notes), CEV, CEB, ESV, Good News, Holman, KJV, Lexham, Message, NIV, NIrV, NLT, etc. Westminster Hebrew, SBL Greek NT; hundreds of other non-English versions.
  • BibleGateway: If you are familiar with the BibleGateway web site, this is an app version of it.
  • Lumina Bible Study: This is an app version of the Lumina Bible site.
  • Textweek - The Text This Week: Many of you are doubtless familiar with the rich Textweek site. Here's an app that will give access to all its riches.
  • ESV Bible App: ESV only but does include ESV Global Study Bible for free

These are my recommendations. There are doubtless many more apps out there, and I know less about the iPhone ones. If you have a favorite to recommend, please leave a comment. Thanks!

The Future of Bible Software

Kevin A. Purcell at Christian Computing Magazine has been a long time user and reviewer of Bible software. In an article in the latest issue (February 2014), he points to quite a few online sites for doing Bible study, but his main contention is that "It’s time for Bible study software makers to go online with all their tools using the power of HTML 5 and modern browsers." I partially agree...

There are a number of issues here, but the main one for me is the device I'm using. I'm living in Windows 7 and Android for now. I'm using Google services to link the two where I need to be linked. As for Bible software, I use it on my Windows 7 machines (I have both a home desktop system with two 21" monitors and a seminary 14" laptop which I drop into a docking station with two 19" monitors) and on my Samsung Galaxy Note II Android smartphone (with its beautiful 5.5" screen). I have lots of Bible software on all these devices, but here is what I use most often.

Windows 7	Android	Browser
BibleWorks 9
Logos 5	Logos Android app	Biblia.com
eSword	MySword for Android
Olive Tree	Olive Tree Android app
	(YouVersion) Bible app	Bible.com
Laridian PocketBible	PocketBible app
		BibleGateway

Of all of these, I'm using BibleWorks and Logos most often on Windows 7. I'm using MySword most often on the phone. When I don't have either available, I use one of the online sites in a browser.

What this shows first of all is that the operating system is not that significant. What is actually more important for me is having access to my resources regardless of the platform. That is why I am very happy with Accordance, Logos, and Olive Tree along with some others for making their software, and the resources I have purchased, available across various systems.

Secondly, what that table shows is that my usage is more dependent on the device I'm using. I do 'serious' Bible study on my Windows machines. I have multiple windows or tabs open with multiple language resources and secondary materials all handy. Even with an i7 processor at 3.4GHz, some of my searches still can take a bit to execute. It's impossible to do that kind of work on my smartphone even though I have a decent processor and one of the biggest screens available. I'm primarily using my smartphone simply to read Bible texts, and in these cases, MySword is the fastest way I have to get to original language texts with some ability to switch between English versions, Greek, and Hebrew. If I want to look up something, then I'll go to the Logos app (or Biblia) where I have access to BDAG or the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary among the other host of reference works.

I did have the chance to live with a tablet device (a Microsoft Surface running the full Windows 8) for a couple weeks while I was traveling in Israel and Jordan. I didn't always have internet access. With the limited drive space on the device and since I was only borrowing the tablet, I didn't want to put on a full program like BibleWorks or Logos. My solution? I used yet another program, The Word, which is rather compact but has numerous English, Greek, and Hebrew versions. If I needed more information, I used Biblia when I had internet access or used Logos or MySword with downloaded modules on my phone.

So, to summarize and to return to Purcell's desire for Bible software to move online with all their tools, I just don't need it yet. As I mentioned, I'm glad to have my library of resources available on the cloud when I have access, but I don't always have access. When I am doing 'serious' Bible study, I want to have screen real estate, which means I'm using a device that has sufficient computing power. I suspect that someday internet access will be ubiquitous (and affordable everywhere?), but in the meantime, I appreciate being able to run my programs locally.

Laridian PocketBible for Mac OS Kickstarter

I'm not a Mac user, and I can't keep up with all the Mac developments in the biblical software area, but Laridian does fine work, and Craig Rairdin is a good person... so, if you're interested help them get this kickstarted!

CleverKeys and WordWeb: Reference Aids to Supplement Bible Software

Sometimes as you are reading something on your computer, you would like to have some quick information about the term: a dictionary meaning, an encyclopedia article, check in Wikipedia, etc. There are two programs I can recommend to make such a lookup quick and easy. Both of them are 'run and stay resident' program. I.e., you will usually have them start when you start your system, and they lurk in the background ready to be called up with a keystroke or mouse click.

CleverKeys is a free program available for both Windows and Macs, and it is the program I have ended up using regularly. It indicates that it was

developed for Dictionary.com by Art & Logic - is free software that provides instant access to definitions at Dictionary.com, synonyms at Thesaurus.com, facts at Reference.com and more — from almost all Windows [and Mac] programs, including word processors, Web browsers and most e-mail programs. With CleverKeys, the answers are just a click away.

It is a very lightweight program (only 5Mb on my Win7 system) and is highly configurable in terms of hotkeys and linked sites. (The default hotkey is CTRL-L, so be aware if you have any keystroke conflicts with that.) Simply highlight a word, hit the hotkey, and a webpage will open looking up that term.

Since it was developed by Dictionary.com, the default is to jump to that site which is built on the latest Random House Dictionary. Using CleverKeys to lookup Passover, you not only get that dictionary with pronunciation, definition, related questions, and origin, but scrolling down you also get info from the World English Dictionary, Word Origin and History, American Heritage Cultural Dictionary, and the 1897 Easton Bible Dictionary. One nice feature of here is that all the definitions on this page have with them a "Cite this source" link that will provide correct citation of the reference in a variety of style formats. The Dictionary.com site also provides and has links at the top of the page to Thesaurus, Quotes, Reference, and Translator resources.

CleverKeys does allow you to create your own weblinks (cf. graphic above), and I have created a link to OneLook Dictionary Search, a dictionary aggregator. For "Passover" it finds definitions in 42 online dictionaries including Dictionary.com, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, etc., and 6 "Religion" dictionaries including Easton's, the Catholic Encyclopedia (1914), the Glossary of Spiritual and Religious Terms (at ReligiousTolerance.org), Smith's Bible Dictionary (1860's at BibleStudyTools.com), Irving Hexham's Concise Dictionary of Religion (1999), and the Glossary of Biblical English of the Authorised Version of the Holy Bible (a bad link).

As you can see, we are dealing with mostly public domain resources, so the quality of results will vary, but that's the problem with most of what is floating on the web or is packaged for free with most Bible software.

WordWeb works a bit differently. It's a bit 'heavier' than CleverKeys (using 50+ Mb of memory), but it can do a bit more including work offline.

WordWeb is a comprehensive one-click English thesaurus and dictionary for Windows. It can be used to look up words from almost any program, showing definitions, synonyms and related words. It includes pronunciations and usage examples, and has helpful spelling and sounds-like links.

You can either use a hotkey combination or a key+mouse click combination to activate WordWeb, and you don't need to highlight the word. You just need to have the cursor on the term. Instead of opening a web page, it opens its own popup window. As you can see in the graphic below, it has a number of lexical and grammatical features: definition, pronunciation, usage examples, synonyms, and other ways of classifying the term.

You also have tabs that link into Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and WordWeb online with links into still more resources.

There are a number of ways that WordWeb is a more sophisticated program than CleverKeys, but I have uninstalled it because of its unique pricing policy. The program is indeed free according to these licensing terms:

You may use the program free of charge indefinitely only if

• You take at most 4 flights (2 return flights) in any 12 month period
• AND you do not own or regularly drive an SUV (sports utility vehicle).

I applaud their environmental concern, and I don't drive an SUV, but I have already had to make 4 round trip flights this year. If you don't meet the licensing terms, then you need to buy a $19 Pro version which does offer more options and functionality. So, instead of paying $19, I'm using CleverKeys. Do note that though the free version only runs on Windows, there is a $5 Pro version for Macs. There are also free Android and iPhone/iPad versions. We now also need to specify that the free version runs fine under Win8 desktop, but they have also a free Win8 app.

CleverKeys, WordWeb, and Bible Software
It is great that these programs work anywhere on your system: web, Word, email, etc. I was interested in these initially as supplements to the Bible software I've been using. If you have Logos, it does have just about everything (depending on your library) including the 2003 Merriam-Webster dictionary and at least 10 Bible-based dictionaries in their most basic library. If anything, Logos, is a bit of overkill, so sometimes I use CleverKeys to more quickly find some basic info or to jump quickly to Wikipedia. Even in their Starter collection, Accordance does include the 1913 Webster's Dictionary, the old Easton's, and the much more useful Eerdman's Bible Dictionary (2000). You can see where CleverKeys or WordWeb might still be useful for Accordance users. BibleWorks has never focused on such auxiliary reference works and only includes Easton's, the Fausset Bible Dictionary (19th century), and the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915). For BibleWorks users and for users of other programs like e-Sword, OliveTree, Laridian, and others which only include some old reference works, CleverKeys or WordWeb should prove to supplement their study nicely.