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.

Biblical Studies and Technological Tools - Review of 2012 and looking ahead to 2013

I had been neglecting this blog a bit in 2011 and the start of 2012, but I had some time to revive it this fall. As a result, traffic to the site did increase by 18% in 2012 as compared to 2011. All told, in 2012 there were 38,459 unique visitors to the site and 74,0171 pageviews. As you would expect, the majority of visitors are from English speaking countries: USA, UK, Canada, Australia. After that, about 1% of the total visitors come from each of the following countries: Philippines, Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Italy, Israel.

• By far the most read post in 2012 (9373 pageviews) was actually one I posted in 2011: Evaluation of Android Bible Apps. Other than the home page, the second and third most visited pages were also from 2011: Bible Software for Android (3750 pageviews) and MySword Bible App for Android. Clearly there is a strong interest in Android Bible apps. I will have to update my reviews. I did post in 2012 about the Relative Speed of Android Bible Apps and the Versions Available in Android Bible Apps. I'm still standing by the observations I made in those posts. I'm using MySword most often because it is the fastest one to come up on my aging Droid X, it has the Greek versions I usually want to read, and it allows for the display of multiple versions. If I want to see a bunch of English versions, I use YouVersion. If I need to do more in-depth work, I will go to Olive Tree or Logos or use a web browser and go to Biblia.com (Logos) or the online NET Bible.
• The most read post from 2012 was the Logos 5 Review - Part 1 with 1827 hits. (Part 2 and Part 3 of my review only received about 800 hits each even though that third part has my concluding observations.) The release of Logos 5 was one of the bigger items of interest in 2012.
• The second most read post was Bible Software Decisions: Accordance, BibleWorks, Logos, et al. There certainly is competition between the Bible software offerings, and when it becomes an investment of many hundreds of dollars, people do want to know what they are getting for their money.

Some news of note in 2012 in this little niche of interest in Bible and technology:

• Accordance 10 released in August and also indicated they are working on Accordance for Windows
• BibleWorks announced support for running on a Mac and on Win8
• Logos 5 released in November

Looking ahead to 2013...

• I am very interested to see what becomes of Windows8. I posted some of my first impressions of using it, and they are definitely mixed impressions. On my home desktop machine, I have the option of upgrading from Win7 to Win8, but I have decided not to do so for the time being. Win8 really is designed as a touch-screen system. To maintain usability with desktop users, Microsoft made some concessions for a classic desktop interface. To me, then, Win8 feels like neither fish nor fowl. I do like the idea of having a similar interface for all my devices, but I'm not sure how that will work out.
• In a related matter, I'm also wondering how Android will proceed. It's not without faults, but I have had great functionality on my Droid X phone which has basically become my do-everything device: phone, contacts, email, web, GPS, photo, Bible software, games... The question for me still is what I will do when my Droid X phone will need to be replaced, probably later this year. Do I go with Android or Win8? I'm not sure.
• It seems clear to me that the market is breaking into Win8, Android, and the Mac OSes. (I tried to keep abreast of developments in all three, but it is too much. I hope to do what I can with Windows and Android.) The question really becomes, what is the future of the desktop and notebook? My daughter wants a tablet, and it appears to me that manufacturers are trying to address this desire. I like the idea of, say, a 10" tablet that I can take everywhere and is able to run all the programs/apps I want. For me, this is probably going to take the form of a Win8 tablet. BUT, I really like lots of viewable screen. (I'm working with two 21" widescreen monitors right now.) Does this mean a tablet with a desktop docking station? Will the tablets really have enough power to run everything, including the photo editing I do? How about an ultrabook and a docking station with multiple monitors? I suspect that I am now old-fashioned for still liking a desktop.
• I will be watching for developments in the online social aspects of doing Bible study. Logos has been promoting Faithlife which has interesting potential. In addition to the online component, it also has ways of hooking in to the Logos software on your computer for sharing notes, searches, etc. YouVersion has a similar kind of integration for their online Bible reading as well as their mobile apps. BibleX is their latest approach to communal Bible reading. There are also a number of ways to read the Bible together on Facebook. I'd love to see this kind of approach become a truly global community of readers, and it could be both groups of Christians as well as interfaith groups.

Android Bible Apps - Relative Speed

I am still working through the Bible apps I have on my Droid X. A common situation for me in using these is when I am in church and wanting to follow along with the lessons being read. I usually like to work in the Greek so I like to have the LXX and a Greek NT handy. One of my frustrations is when the app takes so long to load that I never can catch up with the reader. Even 10 seconds can seem like a long time... Given our liturgy, there is usually enough time between readings that my smartphone turns off, so I need to jump back in to the app. So, I conducted an unscientific test to see how long it takes to:

• Tap the app to launch it
• Exit and immediately relaunch the app
• Switch to a new passage
• Switch to another version (one that's been previously downloaded)
• Switch back to the previous version.

I tried to make sure that nothing else was going on with the phone, and I ran the tests twice. The averages do basically confirm how it feels in real practice.

Do note, however, that there are lots of other factors involved that I do not include here.

• CadreBible and MySword have very nice Parallel or Compare views, and Logos and Olive Tree allow for split screen views if you want multiple versions or languages displayed. For this test, I was just interested in getting to reading a text as quickly as possible. 
• This test does not take into account how long it takes to navigate to a different version or passage. It's not (usually) a significant addition of time (except for Logos which does not have a recently used list), but some apps have better and faster ways of moving around. 
• I have these different apps because I use them for different things, and each has different capabilities. Since I have a good Logos library, I tend to use it when I'm needing to do more in-depth work. So, the speed is probably also dependent somewhat on how many resources are included and the capabilities of the program.
• Laridian's PocketBible is still in pre-release, and I only have a few versions to use with it.

I have my bottom line below, but here are my results. My color coding scheme is rather arbitrary, but it highlights the differences well enough. Green is best, yellow is average, red is slow. (Click on graphic to enlarge)

BOTTOM LINE
As you can see, there are significant differences in how fast each app works on my Droid X. As for me, especially for working with Greek, MySword is the clear winner. I don't have as many English versions in MySword, so if I'm wanting to look at the most English versions, I use YouVersion. It, however, does not have a good way to see multiple versions displayed together, and in that case, I'm back to MySword, CadreBible, Olive Tree, or Logos.

As usual, your own experience probably will vary. Updates to the apps are regularly coming which would likely change results. Still, 'speediness' is a factor developers should keep in mind as they work on their apps.