Reading this blog will prove to you that I love Bible software. Part of the reason is I use it in my day job as a pastor. But I’m also a tech junkie!

The only problem with good Bible software is that it often is expensive. Before you free software producers or fans comment, I am not saying all good Bible software is expensive. Some great programs are free or very inexpensive, especially in the mobile sphere.

As someone who has been using Bible software for nearly two decades and been covering it for many years, I have heard all the arguments for and against charging for Bible software.

Free Software Proponents

The Bible is not owned by any one person. If a Christian truly loves God and his church he should give away his services. After all you cannot out give God. Software is only bits/bytes and not a real tangible product, so it should be free since the recipient isn’t really getting a thing. Also the cost to produce one copy is the same as it is to produce a thousand copies of the software itself. Only the delivery mechanism costs money and in the case of downloads, that cost is negligible.

Pay Software Proponents

A servant is worthy of his hire. How can a person produce good quality software without receiving something to cover his living expenses or her costs of development (computers, software to code with, advertising, paying publishers for content, electricity, food, clothing, shelter, etc)? And if one charges for software he or she can also offer quality support or training for the software to people who are not skilled enough to figure out how to use it on their own.

What’s the Answer?

There may be other arguments in both camps, but those are most of the common ones. So who is right? Put another way, “Should Bible software be free or should it be pay?” The answer is a resounding YES!

It is true that some people have a calling to help the church and Christians by producing tools to help study the Word, learn about discipleship via eBooks, and organize their personal Bible related content like sermons and Bible studies, notes, highlighting and bookmarks and Christian writings in computer software tools. Just like a pastor is called to a full-time vocation of preaching and teaching and caring for the flock, a software developer is called to write software. In order to do that the person will have to be paid or have a way of providing for him or herself. In some cases, people have made enough money in another career that they can take care of those provisions themselves. In the case of e-Sword developer Rick Myers, he used to say on his web site that God had blessed him in the computer industry so now he is donating his time and talents to producing his great and free Bible software. For him and people like him, Bible software should be free and only the resources that cost too much for him to provide are pay software.

In the case of Logos Bible Software, the engine to read their content is actually free. To get all the use of their tools you will have to pay for one of their packages. For them, and companies or individual programmers like them, they have chosen to offer some free content and some pay content. It works making them one of the largest Bible software companies around.

Finally, there is the model of great products like BibleWorks, PC Study Bible, QuickVerse, Laridian PocketBible and more. They charge for their software and for much of their content. Sometimes you can find free books to add onto their packages. The result is a base of users who love their products and keep them in business.

The point is that no one model fits everyone. If you believe that anyone producing anything for the benefit of the church, including Bible software, should give away their services, then you have a number of options to choose from. You can use those products never needing to pay once for any Bible software. But if you don’t mind paying, then you can also get some great content for a small fee sometimes or for many thousands of dollars if you are so inclined and financially blessed.

Conclusion

I can find no Biblical mandate that says all Bible software (or another other service to the Christian church) should always be free. However, there is some support for paying and providing for those who serve the church. Thank God for great people who devote their time to creating the incredible tools available to us today, sometimes for free but often for very reasonable costs. Keep it up! We need you and appreciate you greatly!!

Wanna see what PocketBible is going to look like on the iPad? Me too! Thanks to a post at the Laridian blog, you can.

Feel like a kid in December waiting for this one to get in the app store. They waited to test their app on the actual iPad which will hopefully result in a much more stable release. I like PB on the iPhone, but with the new ability to open multiple books at once it is going to be a killer iPad study tool!

Aside from split pane view, you will get notes and searching of notes. Some of what is being added on the iPad will work in the iPhone app.

“I don’t want to sound like an Apple zealot or iPad fanboy, but I’m starting to think the iPad is the platform for mobile Bible study. I know, I know — you’d like to make that decision for yourself. We’re getting close. It will be worth the wait,” wrote Craig Rairdin of Laridian. Welcome to the party! You’re just now “starting to think” that? He’s right. It is a great tool for mobile Bible study and I think PB looks like it will be a great weapon in that arsenal. Can’t wait to see if I’m right.

Working hard to get your app ready for the iPad launch date must have been a harrowing process. Sadly, a couple of Bible app developers have been frustrated by the app approval process. First Olive Tree has had trouble getting their app approved even though it has already been approved for the iPhone. Now Laridian is reporting that one of their apps has been languishing in the Cupertino dungeon of unapproved iPad apps.

Laridian posted screen shots of their PocketBible iPad app, which is not yet finished. But in the post they stated that their Roman’s Road witnessing tool was made ready and submitted in time for the April 3rd launch, but they have not heard anything from Apple.

Come on Apple! Get these apps approved! Maybe tomorrow!

But not right away.

Today, Craig Rairdin, the head honcho at Laridian, posted on their blog that they have had a lot of requests for an Android version of PocketBible. He said that they have plans to offer a version for Android, but explained that since they are working hard on other priorities and are limited by having only two full-time programs (himself and Jeff Wheeler). When you consider all they are doing, that is pretty good output for just two guys.

He said their priorities are the iPhone OS devices followed by Android. They are partnering with other entities to work on Blackberry and WebOS versions. The will not be devloping a Symbian version and are taking a wait-and-see approach to Windows Phone 7. Palm and Windows Mobile don’t have much promise going forward and he seemed to suggest there won’t be much done on those two platforms.

So be patient and be looking for PocketBible for Android. Just not tomorrow!

If you have been following the tech news this Easter weekend you’d think that Jesus resurrection was the second most important event celebrated today. Personally, I had a ball in church proclaiming “He is risen! He is risen, indeed!” I told my wife as I was exiting the sanctuary that I felt like a kid coming off the roller coaster. “Can we go again!”

After going home and taking a holy nap to recover from the busy weekend of worship prep, I am starting a week of vacation and excited about both preaching and the iPad.

For the last week the various Digital Bible study outlets have been prepping for the iPad launch. Sadly, only a few of them made it over the finish line. But never fear because the race is not over. Some are taking the slow and steady pace approach and others the get there and get it done approach. One of those latter, sadly fell victim to the App store approval process and so wasn’t ready despite great efforts.

The ones that are available are getting in on the excitement. Logos is shining the brightest in my opinion. It is atop the store when you search for Bible and has some really good reviews. YouVersion is very popular and gets a lot of downloads from people who are not looking for a serious Bible study tool. BibleXpress is making a name for themselves, but also has the the most expensive price in the currently available apps for the iPad. HandiBible is there too with the most instances – they have the basic app, a version in Romanian, German, and The Message. holiwrit (yes it is supposed to be lowercase h) is a newcomer going after the crowd who only want a simple Bible reader. Coming soon are OliveTree, PocketBible and MantisBible.

I am excited about the future of Bible study on the iPad. The things that are net yet out may be some of the most creative and use the space most effectively. So be looking for them soon. Until then, it is a little sparce.

One sad note! I did a search for Bible in the Apple iBook app and found very little. You can get the KJV, NIV, and NRSV, but none of the other most popular translations like ESV, HCSB or NLT are there. I hope this changes. On the Kindle side publishers have had a large collection of Bibles for a long time and this helps Bible students who want to read on their iPad. There are also some commentaries and reference works available in iBooks and Kindle. I found the Expositor’s Bible Commentary in iBooks.

If you are an app developer and want your app ready for the April 3rd ship date, then you will have to get yours in today. The question is this: Do you want to release an app you have never actually used on the device on which it is designed to run? That takes either great confidence in your coding ability or great stupidity. At least one Bible developer has decided to wait. I personally think this is a wise idea, but as a consumer I am disappointed; the faster the better. But what would you prefer, a working product or a product quick to ship?

The iPad will run your apps for the iPhone. But will they look good? Will they enhance the experience or make it less than perfect. My hope is that the Bible app developers will not merely port their iPhone/iPod Touch apps to the larger screen, but utilize the benefits of a bigger device. It looks like Laridian is planning just that, according to their blog post announcing they won’t be shipping on launch day for the above reason. As one of the best iPhone Bible apps out there (and the very best prayer tracking app) I expect them to do a good job. I’ve been a long time Laridian user and have been very satisfied with their software for the most part. The other iPhone OS Bible app developers will hopefully have great Bible apps for the iPad. I will likely be doing a review of them for either my April or May article in Christian Computing Magazine.

Also check back to get my impressions of the iPad itself after I get my hands on it next Saturday. I will do a Ustream video.

With Gizmodo reporting over 1,000 apps in the iPhone app store devoted to the Bible, it could be hard to figure out which one is best. I did an in depth review of Bible apps in Christian Computing Magazine before I joined the Notebooks.com team. In that review I found that the three best were Laridian PocketBible, Olive Tree Bible Reader, and Mantis Bible.

As with most iPhone apps, the development cycle is swift so some of what I reported is already out of date. A new app released since that review is from Logos Bible Software and deserves a spot on the list. The most popular is YouVersion, but it does not have all the features and study tools available in the other four. All four of these are free to try. All except for YouVersion have very advanced tools for studying the Bible as well as ways of helping you set up reading plans.

Currently I am using Logos for daily reading, OliveTree for taking notes when I am in worship, and I use Mantis and PocketBible when I want to use the books I have purchased for those apps that are not available on the other two.

Social networking and Bible study should go together. The iPad may help us in this venture.  I read about some interesting key points (thanks to Gizmodo) that Apple wants developers to keep in mind as they prep iPhone and Touch apps for the iPad coming sometime in the next two months. One of the points said:

They’re super into the sharing thing: "Think of ways people might want to use your application with others. Expand your thinking to include both the physical sharing of a single device and the virtual sharing of data."

As I read that I thought again about the thing I am most excited about when it comes to using the new iPad – Bible study.  How could developers of Bible study apps incorporate more “sharing” so that we could take advantage of the “application with others”? Already there is some social network built into a few of my favorite Bible apps on iPhone/Touch. YouVersion is probably the best at this with their community based app that can be used by people together in church or together commenting and sharing about the app. My problem is I don’t like the YouVersion’s selection of content or the interface. I also really don’t like only being able to use it online, although you can now download a number of Bibles. While it may be the most downloaded app, it is not more favorite and I don’t have it installed.

Of my favorite Bible apps, Logos can post to Facebook and Twitter from within the app. You can also email verses from within Logos. But there is no two way interaction. Olive Tree syncs notes with Evernote, so I guess there could be some do it yourself interaction there.  Neither Laridian PocketBible nor MantisBible have any social interaction at all.

Imagine, if someone would really jump on this with some really useful social interactivity. I could imagine a Bible app that …

• Let’s people share reading plans by marking them to be shared between devices and posted to social networking sights
• Highlighting and other mark-up that is shared in real time. A pastor or Bible study leader wants everyone to look at the word “perish” in John 3:16 so in social networking mode, everyone’s Bible app would sync to the same place (John 3:16) and the word “perish” would be highlighted. Then a note he had already added the word would pop up on everyone’s device with the same content saying “perish means to destroy yourself. God is not responsible for our perishing; we are.” I could then tap a spot in the pop up to save it to my mark-ups or just let it go away once the social networking session is finished.
• What if I had a book on my device that I wanted others to see while we are studying together – like TWOT as we look up an Old Testament Hebrew word. They might have access to TWOT, but for this session they can see it temporarily during the study. There would also be a link somewhere on the other person’s screen giving him/her the opportunity to purchase this book either now or later. This would be a good way to legally share content either temporarily or permanently and would give a revenue stream to the software maker.
• Like YouVersion, it would be nice to have a “wall” where we could post comments or sermon notes so that anyone searching that version could access the public content. There could also be a collaborative way to create content together from within the program that is later searchable.

These are just a few ideas. What would you like to see in this kind of app. I know that some of the Bible app producers read this sight so you can speak to them via this post and comments.

Laridian has produced what it calls an eTract for the iPhone. The concept is that this is a witnessing guide for use on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You open the app and follow it as you are sharing the Gospel with someone. It follows, for the most part, what is traditionally called the Roman’s Road. This witnessing presentation usually uses four scriptures from the book of Romans.

Romans 3:23

Romans 6:23

Romans 5:8

Romans 10:9

The tract is pretty good and strays a little from the traditional Roman’s Road. But in a good way. While I kind of wish it was a little more colorful and I also wish there was a way to give it away, it is a good little app. For only 99 cents in the App Store how can you go wrong?

There is a possibility that there might be future eTracts using the same framework but with different content. I would love to be able to submit my favorite witnessing format and have them create an app.

Dave Dunkin, a developer of the Logos iPhone app, created a very nice and very fair comparison chart of all the major iPhone Bible apps. The reason this is significant is that he is extremely honest and fair when judging his own app. He don’t just glow about the Logos app. The extensive chart compares Logos, BibleReader from OliveTree, PocketBible from Laridian, YouVersion, Paul Avery Bible and Mantis.

Check it out at Dave’s Blog over at the rabble.rule blog.