Bible.Is is a new iPhone Bible app that reads the Bible to you. It is not like many of the Bible apps that have introduced audio. Instead of computer generated Bible reading, it uses dramatized Bible readings. They get the audio from Faith Comes By Hearing, a ministry that supplies the Bible in 400 languages and free for download. Thanks to Bible.is you get it on your iPhone or iPad. It is also available on other platforms, like Android and hopefully Windows Mobile, Blackberry and Symbian OS in the near future. Until then you can subscribe to the SMS version which sends a text message with links to the MP3 of that day’s reading. They say it will take you 40 days to listen to the entire New Testament.

I really like the iPhone app and think it is well worth the price, which is Free. But it would be worth it if it costs even more. Below is a video of the app reading from 1 Kings.

As you can hear it is high quality dramatized Bible reading. But that is not all Bible.is can do. You can of course read from a few different translations, including the ESV, one of my favorites. It doesn’t have as many modern translations as some apps, but it is free.

The app also lets you highlight text, take notes, and bookmark your favorite verses. Notice from the screen shots below that you can listen to the Bible by simply opening to a verse and hitting the play button. You choose to read from several English translations including ASV, BBE, CEV, ESV, KJV and NRSV. The audio is available only for some translations and sometimes only for the NT.

Dramatized Available: ESV OT & NT, KJV OT & NT, NRSV NT only

Non Dramatized Available: KJV NT only, NRSV NT only

These will have to be downloaded via the More option in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen (see bottom left row of screen shots).

If you want to get through the NT in just 40 days there is an audio listening program available for that (see above right).

You can search the Bible and add bookmarks, highlights, and notes. To add these just tap and hold the verse and the screen above center will appear. Tap the first icon on the top toolbar to add a bookmark. The center icon brings up the highlighting color options. And the third icon is for sharing the verse on Facebook. I wish it had Twitter, but maybe in a future release.

Once the verse is highlighted it will look like the upper left screen shot. The bookmarks list is in the center above and the right is for changing the text size or the language.

Below you will see the More screen options. Share is for sending verses via email. The settings screen is the one on the upper right. Download is for adding translations and audio Bibles. Support and About are what you would expect. The screen shot below on the right is for changing the toolbar icons. You can change the default to include other things as you wish.

I think Bible.is is a great Bible listening app. My only complaints are that it doesn’t have my favorite translations, the HCSB and it doesn’t share via Twitter.  Other than that it is a wonderful app well worth your time to download and use to listen to God’s word. I plan to listen to the program on the go via my car stereo (cassette adapter).

Tecarta produces a very capable Bible reader that is so good it is almost ready to compete with the more powerful Bible study apps from the likes of Logos, Mantis, Olive Tree and Laridian. But I still chose to keep it among the Bible reader apps since it is not quite as advanced as those apps.

Tecarta has a lot to offer including in translation purchases of more modern translations like the NIV, The Message, NLT and NKJV. They are all $5.99 extra. If you want you can just buy the NIV version outright instead of this one. The NIV version is also $5.99.

The video review highlights the features, but some of the nicer ones include note taking which works as a window along the right side or can be expanded to fill the whole screen. There is a parallel view for showing multiple translations. You can also get content out via email or copying to other apps. It also has a night mode, which many readers do not. Other features include bookmarks and red letter in the NIV and TNIV.

My only complaint is that the parallel modes do not sync up with one another so that if you scroll in one the other translation follows it. But it is a very good reader app for not a lot of money.

TouchBible Loaded is another Bible reader app for the Apple iPad. It has some nice feature, but unfortunately it falls down in one big one.

The interface is simple with the ability to pinch to zoom, scrolling within a chapter, and advancing or going back a chapter at a time using swiping or the arrow keys.

Of course you can search using basic search functionality in the OT or NT only and searching by word, any words or exact phrases.

It is a little limited in content with only the NET, KJV, WEB, BBE, ASV, YLT, Darby, and Webster.

Some of the nicer features included is the ability to have parallel translations and adding notes and highlighted.

Below is my video review and then the Pros and Cons of the app after that:

Pros:

• Simple
• Has parallel version mode
• Can add notes, bookmarks, highlights
• Pinch to zoom
• Night mode
• Dial-a-verse which loads on random verse each time starts
• Paragraph and verse per line mode

Cons:

• Slow to respond
• Few translations
• Help, Reading plan for daily bible reading, maps are Internet only features

The TouchBible Loaded that I reviewed in this video is $4.99 in the app store. There is also a free version and version for the iPod Touch/iPhone.

Christian Computing Magazine is out for this month. In it I did a review of the four Bible Study apps from Logos, PocketBible from Laridian, OliveTree’s Bible Reader, and MantisBible. Check it out at CCMag.com. Also they are giving away $500 Apple Gift card this month. So there’s another reason to go get the issue.

Holy Bible HD is another simple Bible reader app that has some very nice features.

When you open the app you will see the beautiful splash screen that goes away quickly on the iPad due to the device’s speed. It opens in a simple reader mode but can be used in dual pane mode, as you see below.

The app has some of the nice features that I believe all apps should include like note taking, highlighting, low light mode, and bookmarking. To get around in the Bible you can scroll through a chapter, move back and forth a chapter at a time using the arrows in the upper right, or you can tap the icon that looks like a Bible with its ribbon hanging out in the upper left. From there you can scroll through the list of books and chapters. You also choose your versions there using the Version Selector.

With the version selector open, you can add a second pain by selecting a version in the second scrolling list. The available versions are mostly public domain works or foreign language.

If you want to add translations, choose the Manage Bibles item. At the top of the window is the list of what you already have installed. Below that are available translations to download and install for free. You won’t find modern translations like the NIV, NASB, ESV, or HCSB. The developer says that they are too expensive to include in a free app and that is understandable.

Finally, to follow a daily Bible reading, open the window using the same icon in the upper left that you use to jump to another book or translation. The calendar icon reveals the Daily Reading window. There you can choose from the list of plans and then keep track of your progress.

If you don’t want to move around using the book and chapter scrolling wheel, then tap the location button which lets you type in a reference to instantly jump there. It is  in the upper left next to the Book/Chapter icon.

On the bottom left are icons to control your bookmarks, view the history of where you have been in the Bible, add or edit chapter notes, search the Bible or control the automatic scrolling mode. More on auto scrolling in a moment.

Bookmarks can be organized into folders. To add a bookmark simple tap and hold the verse number till the popup window appears. That menu lets you do a number of other things too, including copying the verse to the clipboard for pasting into another app. You can also add highlights of different colors and see what verses you have already highlighted.

There is a history button that shows you the list of where you have been in the app. Tap the passage and it takes you there.

To add a note, tap on the pencil icon. Notes are attached to chapters, not verses. You can then email the notes. This could be a handy way to get notes off the iPad and into a desktop app; just email them to yourself. To view a list of all your notes, from the editor, tap the notes list icon in the upper right end of the toolbar.

To search the app, hit the search icon on the toolbar. It has searching in exact mode which finds exact matches or what is called “close” for when you have a good idea of what you want to find but cannot remember the exact word or phrase. That “fuzzy searching” is a nice feature that some desktop apps don’t handle well.

Holy Bible HD has one really cool feature for reading the Bible. It is called the auto scrolling mode. Tap the down arrow button and the content starts scrolling. You can control the speed via the settings menu button on the lower right hand side.

Speaking of the settings, there are a number of nice customizations you can do to the app. They include changing the font and paragraph modes. You can also change the colors of the font and background. This is how you get low light mode. Simple change the background to a dark color and the font to a light one like white. I wish it was a one tap process but at least it is there.

Bible Reader HD is another simple reader app that is not designed for serious Bible reading. It lacks modern translations but it is also free in the app store. Don’t expect modern translations in the future either. The developer says they are not coming. But for the simple reader apps, it has a lot to offer and should be given serious consideration by users who want a free reader app and don’t need anything but public domain translations.

holiwrit for the Apple iPad is another very simple Bible reader app that does one thing nicely. It allows you to read the New English Translation of the Bible. It is not intended for users who need or want more out of a Bible app. The app store description even says, “Are you a pastor? A theologian? A Master of Divinity? This app is not for you.”

As you can see the interface is simple. It only works in Portrait mode. The navigation uses back and forward arrows at the bottom left and right to jump back or forward one chapter in the current book of the Bible. To jump further than a chapter at a time, pull down the Bible screen as if you were going to scroll down and it reveals the Table of Contents which then locks into place with two rows – one for books and one for chapters. There is a small button on the upper left corner to open or close the TOC as well. You will see from the video below that the tabs scroll smoothly and very quickly so it doesn’t take long to go from the beginning to the end of the Bible.

holiwrit allows you to copy and paste verses, which is nice. But it does not have notes, bookmarks or highlighting. And you cannot change to a low light mode either.

One final complaint – the name! I don’t like the lowercase name and I keep wanting to type and say “holiwrite” – with an “e” on the end making it write. You will notice in the video I even spelled it wrong in the opening title. Sorry to the developer for that. That is an incredibly nit picky kind of complaint that likely reveals more about me than the app.

holiwrit costs $3.99 or you can try out the Gospels only version for Free.

One of the best modern Bible translations is the ESV. I have chosen to read through it this year in my devotionals. The publisher is Crossway and they are aggressively pushing it into the digital realm. If any of the free Bible apps on the iPad have a modern translation available it is often the ESV.
Crossway has their own Bible Reader app too. The ESV Bible is a simple Bible Reader app and little more. With it you can read only the ESV. You can do a few other things as well.

You navigate through the Bible by scrolling or to quickly jump to a passage you choose the strangely named Browse button.

If you are a Twitter user, you can post verses online for your followers to read. And you can also email right from within the app.

The app also support personal note taking and highlighting via the more button on the right end of the toolbar. Or you can press and hold the text of a verse to open a dialogue box. From there you can access reference notes, post to twitter, send the verse by email. highlight the verse or add it to your favorites.

To search tap the search button.ESV Bible is a very basic Bible reader. It doesn’t have a lot of frills. It does not have the ability track Bible reading plans or a low light mode. And there are no other books or translations in it. But if all you want to do is read and share the ESV Bible then the free app cannot be beat. It is a  univesal app too, so it will work on both the iPad and the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Below is a video that I shot to show you the interface of the program.

HANDiBIBLE is a simple to use Bible Reader for the Apple iPad. It does not have a lot of features, but that is by design. Jerry Beers is a responsive developer who is always willing to listen to the requests of his customers. There are a few different versions. The cheapest has the KJV for only $1.99, but you can also get The Message, a German Bible and a Romanian Bible as well.

The interface is much like Windows Explorer with the books of the Bible along the left while the actual Bible is on the right. Above the list of the books of the Bible are buttons for entering your verse to jump to a new passage or for searching to find words and phrases in the Bible. You can easily share Bible passages with the button on the upper left of the Bible pane. Unfortunately it jumps out of the app into the Mail app. You have to manually go back into the app afterwards if you want to continue to read.

To zoom in or out you simply use the pinch gesture. I wish every Bible reader/study app had this feature. Another feature I wish they all had was the one demonstrated below:

One of the best features is the low light mode, seen above. This is handy for reading in dark rooms either at night or if your church lowers the light during the worship service. The mode is toggled on/off with the light bulb button on the toolbar.

The two arrows in the upper right are for advancing or going back a chapter at a time.

My review of the Apple iPad over at Notebooks.com is (at least right now) the highest news item on Google. Here’s the proof!

Of course it has already been replaced! But my 15 seconds of fame …

Bible study on the iPhone just keeps getting better. I am blessed to get to play with some exciting products on the iPhone, PC and hopefully soon the iPad. One of those products is from one of the smallest of the companies producing Bible software for iPhone, Mantis. But they are also one of the most creative. And is named as one of my top four Bible apps for the iPhone.

The company just released 4.7 from the Apple App store with a few really nice improvements.

Text to Speech

The first addition of note is the Text to Speech capability using one of five optional voice add-ons. The voices can be purchased either in the app or through MantisBible.com for only 1.99. I tested them out reading from 1 Peter.

Of the five voices, I liked the Ryan voice the most. It is an adult mail voice and is clear and easy to listen to. If you prefer a female voice you can choose Heather or Laura. The Heather voice was my personal favorite. Two of the voices are children’s voices and they are not as good, but your kids might prefer them. The Kenny voice actually sounded a little more like a girl to me.

You first must install the voices from the library menu by tapping the book name in the top left corner. Tap the Media tab and scroll down to see the voice names. Purchase them by tapping and the next screen will give you the option. If you purchased them online, you will have to tap the Check for updates in bright red at the top of the screen to have them in your list of available content. They take a little while to download, so be patient.

While in a reading window, tap on the Tools button in the top right to reveal the toolbar. The button directly next to the larger white Options button is a sound icon. It reveals the reading toolbar at the bottom (pictured below). From there you will see the toolbar at the bottom of the text with the close button to turn off the voice, a long slider, the voice chooser button in white and the play button to the right. Tap the white box to choose among the installed voices. Hit the play button and it will start reading to you.

I am not sure what the slider is used to adjust. It thought it was for the speed of the voice or the volume, but it seems to do nothing right now. Also you cannot switch voices on the fly; you must first pause the voice and then tap the voice selection box. Not sure if this is by design or a bug. I wish it would automatically stop the voice and take me to the screen where I can choose another voice.

While choosing the voice you can adjust the volume and speed of the voice (see the above screen shots – the lower left screen shot shows the voice selector with volume and speed sliders).

This will be a nice feature while driving or exercising. You can do your devotional “reading” while on the go. Aside from the minor annoyances, it works great!

Verse Memorization Module

There are verse memorization apps in the Apple App store, but it makes so much sense to have one in your Bible app. When reading your devotions or listening to someone teach on a verse you can quickly add the verse to the memorization module and come back later to learn it.

You access the module from the menu that appears when you press and hold the verse number. For example, if you want to add Romans 3:23 to the memorization list, top and hold the 23 in Romans 3:23 and the menu will appear. If you have used Mantis for awhile you will recognize this as the way to access the inline translation chooser, commentary chooser, and other functions like adding notes or highlights. The inline study Bible as they like to call it is one of the greatest plusses of MantisBible. Now there is a Memorize button with a heart over the word.

After adding the verse by tapping the Memorize button, you access your list of verses by going to your notes. At the top you will see folders. If you have no other folders of notes it will be the only one there. Otherwise find the Memorize folder. Tap on the verse you added and the Memorization module screen appears. From there you can work on memorizing the verse. Hit the Question mark button to learn about how to use the module as it is not obvious, but once you are told it is quite useful and easy to work with.

The way to memorize is by repetition. You read and re-read the verse over and over. You then start tapping words to remove them from the verse (see right below). After awhile the entire verse is gone but you are saying it from memory.

At the bottom of the screen you see [RESET VERSE], which you tap so you can see the original verse. When you think you know it, tap the test  button at the upper left (see above pictures). There are two test styles. With the Scrambled button selected, when you tap the Test button it puts all the words of the verse in the bottom half of the test screen all scrambled in the wrong order (see left below). Tap the words in the proper order to show that you have it memorized. The alternative test type lets you type out the words. When the 1st Letter button is selected prior to tapping the Test button, a keyboard is placed in the bottom of the screen (see right below). Start typing the first few letters of a word to make it appear above to test your memorization.

Advanced Search

The final new feature in this release is the Advanced Search function. I won’t go into a lot of detail here. But from the MantisBIble.com forum, here is what they developer is saying about it.

New Search Screen (allows you to search across all installed volumes at the same time, select specific books of the Bible to filter the search, and allows you to view the entire verse for each "hit" and drill-down to strongs numbers, etc., all in the search screen.)

The search feature is much improved and will give you more control over finding content.

MantisBible just keeps getting better. The text to speech and memorization modules are very nice additions. As per my custom of rating using the App Store model, I give Mantis a definite five star rating. After reading some of the reviews about stability issue in the App store reviews, I was surprised. I think that one caveat iPhone software users should consider is that if an app is buggy or crashing ask yourself two things.

1. Have I reset my iPhone since upgrading? That usually fixes problems I have had with a cantankerous app.

2. Have I been updating for so long that it might be time to do a fresh install. The iPhone OS keeps all your preferences when you simply upgrade. After a few point releases it is a good idea to delete the app and reinstall from scratch either from the App store or by syncing with iTunes on your desktop.

I have had no issues with buggy behavior with v. 4.7. Nor has it crashed once. YMMV!