4 Ways Logos Bible Software Can Help You Share God's Word
Logos 9 Bible Software can help you share God's word. Check out these best posts on Logos 9 and a way to save 20%.
Logos Bible Software is one of the top Bible study programs you can buy for both Mac and PC. It's powerful, helps users access a large library of excellent content, and beginners and advanced Bible software users can quickly get used to the program.
I've written a lot about the program so I'm going to share some of my best posts and then show you how you can get a discount on the software.
Open the Logos Guides From Inside Accordance
Some of you might be coming over to Logs from Accordance or vice versa. You don't have to uninstall the old one. Just use them together. You can open a Passage Guide or any of the great guides inside Accordance and make use of your Logos library.
Find out how to do this great little hack in my post: How to Use Accordance Amplify to Website to Open Your Logos Library.
The Factbook: What is it and How Do You Use It?
Think of the Factbook as a Bible Encyclopedia on steroids. It's got a lot of facts about the bible. You can learn more about people, places, things, theological ideas, books of the Bible, and a ton more. So read the article about how to use it and watch the video below that demonstrates the Logos 9 Factbook.
Make Logos Work Like Wordsearch
If you loved Wordsearch, then you likely felt abandoned when Lifeway sold the program and all of its assets to Faithlife, the makers of Logos. But, I wrote a post on How to Make Logos Work More Like Wordsearch. So check that article out.
Get 20% Off Base Packages
Maybe you don't already own Logos 9 and would like to. You can get 20% off a base package using my affiliate link. The like will work from April 1 till May 3rd. For full disclosure, I will get 10% of the purchase price from Faithlife as a commission.
18 New Features in Logos 9.5 Update
Faithlife recently released a Logos 9.5 Update to their popular Logos Bible Software. It comes with 18 new features and updates.
Logos 9.5 Update came out recently, and it brought some interesting new features and fixes. Here's a list of the X new features in Logos 9.5 that you can enjoy right now by updating your copy of Logos. If you're not yet running Logos 9, now's a good time to update. See my 6-month later review to get a 15% discount until June 15, 2021.
Download and update inside Logos 9 using the Update Now command in the Command Box. It sits on the toolbar on the left side with the big green GO button as seen in the screen shot above.
Counseling Guide Improvements
- New Journals Guide Section
- New Lectures Guide Section
- New Web Resources Guide Section
- New Bookstore Guide Section
- More Link takes you to Monographs and Dictionaries Sections.
Factbook Improvements
See our post about how to use the new Factbook
- Added the ability to see your results in the autocomplete drop-down when there are no results in your localized language.
- Added a keyboard switcher to the Factbook auto-completer.
- Improved the transliterations in Factbook autocomplete
My Library
There's now a new facet in the My Library for Factbook in the tabs for Yours and Store, which refers to books the user owns or books from the Logos store. So first, open the Library, and you'll find these tabs in the upper right part of the window on the toolbar. Next, open the Facets list by clicking on the Facets button, which looks like three horizontal lines next to the search box in the Library window.
When a user clicks on the "more:" link in the Facets list, it adds up to 100 new items instead of just 50 as it previously did.
Other New Features in the Library
From the Logos 9.5 Update wiki...
- Added support to persist Library settings in Favorites, Shortcuts, History, and Bookmarks.
- Added support to retain the selected tab and filter state when copying the panel URL.
- The update moved the Language facet to the top in the Store tab.
Resource Info Panel Improvement
If you use the reading plans in Logos 9, you'll love the new feature they added to the Resource Info Panel in the Logos 9.5 Update. First, open a book and click on the resource panel by clicking on the three vertical dots button at the right end of the book's toolbar. Then, click on the Start reading plan button in the list.
Sermon Builder Improvements
In this version, you can now edit passage blocks in the Sermon Builder. This also works with quote blocks. When you hit Enter, the cursor will leave the blockquote box. Also, Logos will now auto-publish the date changes on a sermon's occasion.
Two other minor updates include a new Store button on the toolbar. This is a little annoying because it takes up space that may be precious to users on smaller screens.
Before the Logos 9.5 update, when you created a customized guide using one of the default guides as your starting point, Logos never added new sections in later updates. Now, if you add sections or remove sections from the default guides, then Logos will not only keep your changes, but add anything they added to the default guides. New things added in future updates would not be added to your customized version, but Logos fixed that in this update.
3 Great Logos Deals You Can Get Right Now
Logos Bible software users can get 3 great Logos deals right now.
Logos Bible software users can get 3 great Logos deals right now. The first one is an older deal that remains in place until June 15. The other three just started this June.
Do you use Logos Bible Software for your study? Logos 9 is a great package to study the Bible personally, for sermons, Bible studies, teaching, preaching, and for your scholarly study.
Save 15% on Logos Deal on Logos 9 Base Package Sales
We shared last month during our 6-month later review. You can get 5 free books from a select collection of titles plus get 15% off Logos 9 Base Packages. Here's the link to get the deal.
The base packages will let you upgrade to Logos 9 if you haven't already. If you did, you can jump up to a higher level or get the next level for your denominational base package.
50% Off Eerdmen Publishing Resources for Logos
Check out these great deals and add to your research or study library books like...
- NICOT and NICNT - a great in-depth commentary series on the Bible with "thorough and modern scholarship" on the books of the Bible covered by the New International Commentary series. You save over $600 off the $1599.99 regular price.
- Eerdman's Biblical Reference Collection - resources on language study, additions to the Factbook, and the Theological Dictionary of the OT and NT. The collection retails for $1,138.99, but you can buy it in this sale for $569.99.
- Theological Dictionary of the OT and NT - a great set for theological linguistic research and study. It normally costs $849.99, but with this Logos deal, save 40% and pay $509.99.
- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Revised - ISBE was a standard reference for almost any important word or topic in the Bible with a huge collection of 1,500 photos and 342 maps. Instead of paying $129.99, you only pay $77.99.
- Two Horizons Commentary Series - get 23 volumes with excellent biblical exegesis and theological study. It covers the Bible paragraph by paragraph rather than verse by verse. Pay just $249.99, saving 28% off the $349.99.
Logos Deal on Free Book of the Month
Every month Logos offers a free book of the month, where users can save and get a free book. Sign up for the email to get the book. You can also get other books drastically discounted. For example, this month get...
- Hard Sayings of the Bible - explains over 500 passages difficult to understand. Free
- The Spirit of Grace - part of the Christian Belief for Everyone Series, which gives readers an accessible explanation of the doctrines of the faith. This is the 4th volume covering "the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of the Saints, and the forgiveness of sins." $.99
- Psalms: An Introduction and Commentary - part of the Tyndale Commentaries series. $1.99
- The Person of Christ - focuses on the person of Christ in the history of church doctrine. $2.99
- 2 Corinthians The IVP NT Commentary - part of this commentary series and covers the book in a practical and theological way covering passage by passage comments. $3.99
- The Temple and the Church's Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God - G.K. Beale discusses the OT tabernacle and temple as symbols of the indwelling of Christ and talks about how this applies to NT understanding thanks to Christ. $4.99
- The Bible for Everyone - a new version of the Bible written to make it more accessible for everyone. $5.99
- Exodus Apollos OT Commentary - discusses the book focusing on the Exodus event and how we learn of God's love for his people as he changes the lives of people who were similarly victimized. $6.99
- Foundations of the Christian Faith: A Comprehensive & Readable Theology Revised and Expanded - a readable theology for the average believer. $7.99
- The Revelation to John: A Commentary on the Greek Text of the Apocalypse - Dr. Stephen Smalley offers a commentary on the Greek text of the book of Revelation. $8.99
- Pre-order Changed into His Likeness: A Biblical Theology of Personal Transformation - Gary Miller covers the issue of the Gospel where many promise too much and others expect too little of converts. $7.99
Logos 9 Factbook: How To Get the Most Out of the New Features in Logos 9
What is the new Logos 9 Factbook and how can it help you study the Bible more efficiently. We'll look at it in this series on new Logos 9 features.
What is the Logos 9 Factbook, and how can you get the most out of this new feature if you upgraded to Logos 9? We'll take a look at each of the new features in Logos 9 now that we've had plenty of time to use them.
It's now been six months+ since Logos 9 came out. Since we've had it in hand that long I wrote a 6-months-later review. In addition to reading that, you can see my original post about the release of Logos 9. In this post, we will do a deep dive into all the new features starting with the one Logos made the most of in their advertising of Logos 9, the Logos 9 Factbook.
If you'd like to get a discount on Logos 9, you can use my affiliate link to give you 15% off, some free books, and my appreciation. I get a kickback to help me with expenses related to my website, podcast, and YouTube channels. Use the code PARTNEROFFER9 when you follow that link to get the discount and free books.
What is the Logos 9 Factbook?
Logos says, "The Factbook is one of the most powerful features of Logos, and it makes almost any biblical or theological term easily searchable." I compare it to a Bible encyclopedia on steroids. Just about anything you want to learn about in a Bible text will show up in the Factbook.
Past versions of Logos included the Factbook. However, it received a lot of attention in the update to version 9. A minor update comes in the form of the new icon. It now looks like a book with a checkmark on it.
New Sections in the Factbook
Second, Logos added a bunch of new topics to search for in Factbook. The new things include...
- Biblical Senses - these are translations of the Greek or Hebrew word. Biblical Senses give you an understanding of different ways the original language terms were translated in various places.
- Hebrew & Greek lemmas - you can now start a Greek or Hebrew word study from the Factbook report.
- Counseling Guide - start a study of the counseling guide on topics related to counseling, like marriage or addiction.
- Theological Guide - start a study of theological words or concepts from Factbook.
- Denominational Content - find all content on the topic from a denominational library, like Baptist or Lutheran.
- Lists as Topics - when you search for a topic, like a person's name. You'll see entries in the Factbook with lists related to that person's name or book of the Bible. For example, if I search for Matthew, it will find people named Matthew, topics or preaching themes from the book of Matthew, and more.
- Show All Topics - when you type a search term in the box in the Factbook, it will show a drop-down list of some searches you might be wanting as you type. At the bottom of the list, you'll see Show All Topics, which gives you a new list with all the Factbook topics containing your search term.
- Pericopes as Topics - search for a reference like John 3:16, and you'll get a list of pericopes (passages) with links to open the passage in the Lexham Context Commentary plus Media, Events, Sermons, and a See Also section.
These make up the list of the major new parts found in the updated Factbook.
Other Parts of the Logos 9 Factbook Still Available
Below, you'll see a list of other topics still included (from Logos support). The sections that show up in it are listed below:
- Info - basic information about the item search. This shows up in every search.
- Key Article - a section at the top from one of the common books in your library. Logos says the Lexham Bible Dictionary is an example of the book this Key Article will show. You get part of that article shown there in the list. Faithlife picked what Key Articles will show up for each kind of search item. The company focuses on its own tools, like Lexham Theological Library for original language terms.
- Media - images from any of your media resources.
- Letters - Personal Letter resources by an author if that's what you searched.
- Works - works created by the author showing links either to books in your library or store pages on Logos.com.
- Passages - shows a list of passages, like concordance of the word, topic, or thing. A link lets you instantly create a Passage List from the resulting list in the Passages section.
- Events - links to the Timeline and Biblical Event Navigator if a user owns that book.
- Dictionaries - articles in your dictionaries.
- Preaching Resources - topics from your preaching-themed resources.
- Referred To As - Bible verses organized by the way the search item is referred to with a list of the verses and a graph showing where that shows up in the Bible.
- Cultural Concepts - shows links to the Lexham Cultural Ontology Glossary, "which shows a hierarchy of the concept’s type, and search results for the concept within your Library" (from Logos Support site).
- Library - books in your library with content related to the search item.
- Journals - links to journals in your library with content related to the search.
- Sermons - links to sermons found in your library with content related to the search.
- Community Tags - these are tags that Logos users added to a section related to the search item. If I tagged a part of a book as "grace," then it would show up in other users' searches for grace.
- Bookstore - shows books for sale related to the search item.
- See Also - shows other things in your library that don't fit in the above section.
How to Open the Logos 9 Factbook
To open the Factbook you can do one of the following...
- Toolbar - Click the Factbook icon on the main window's toolbar. Enter what you want to search for in the search box.
- Go Box - start typing in the Go Box, and Logos 9 shows links to Open the Factbook to that topic, word, passage, etc. It also shows up as one of the taps that opens when you enter a search term and hit enter or click on the Go button.
- Tools Menu - You can also open it from the Tools menu. Either look for Factbook or type that in the search box at the top of the menu. Or it usually shows up in the shortcuts area at the top of the Tools menu.
- Context or Right-click Menu - Select a word in the text of your book or Bible and right-click, bringing up the context menu. You'll see the Factbook links in many places usuually in the right when you highlight a subject on the left.
- Visual Filters Button - There's now a toolbar icon in the Bible window for the Factbook. Click to turn it on and from now on you'll see blue dotted lines under words with Factbook entries. Don't confuse those with other solid blue lines that may show up if you've created other visual filters, like I did for parts of speech. Click those words to open a Factbook window for that word.
- Search Panels - When you search for things in a search box, the Factbook sits near the top somewhere in your search results. It moves around depending on what you searched for, but it will show up near the top of the results.
If you use the last method to turn on the Factbook, you can turn on or off what Factbook features will show when you click using Visual filters (see image above). Turn on or off different parts of the Factbook by clicking the down arrow next to the Factbook button. A list with checkboxes shows up, ready to turn off and on.
Bible Book Guides
The Bible Book Guides in the new Logos 9 Factbook shows up when looking at a book of the Bible in the Factbook. For example, if you search for the book of Hebrews, it will show you a section about the book. This section will help if you're going to do a study of a book of the Bible. You'll see the following sections:
- Content - Introduction, outlines, and contents mostly from commentaries on the book that you search for in Factbook
- Origin - Links to the books in your library with information about the book's author, date, and purpose.
- Background - Shows books with content about historical context, recipients of a book, and the author's location when writing the book.
- Objects - Books with geographical, date, location, and key people in the book.
- Canon - Discussions about the canonization of the book.
- Form - Discussions of the book's composition, text, title, style, and structure.
- Meaning - Books with info on the book's themes, emphases, interpretation, theology, significance, and spiritual content.
- Additional Information - Links to Bible dictionaries and commentaries with additional info about the book.
Logos 9 Upgrade 6 Months Later - Is It Still Worth the Upgrade Cost?
It's been about six months since Faithlife released Logos 9 upgrade to focus on some key improvements to the computer app and the mobile app. Also, you can save $1,600 on a Logos 9 Base Package plus get 5 free books using the link provided in this article.
It's been about six months since Faithlife released Logos 9 upgrade to focus on some key improvements to the computer app and the mobile app. I published my review over at ChurchTechToday.com on October 30, 2020, and talked about it here as well.
The Logos 9 upgrade brought the following key improvements, like...
- Some user interface tweaks make the software easier to use.
- An update to the Factbook in the Logos 9 Upgrade
- The interesting Sermon Manager and Sermon Builder
- A Counseling Guide
- New sorting features in the Bible commentaries section of the Passage Guide
- Improvements to the Reading Plans and the Reading Queue
In addition to the above improvements in the Logos 9 Upgrade, we also saw some decent changes in the mobile app. They added the Factbook to the menu seen in the toolbar at the bottom right corner of the app. You can also use your iPad or tablet for preaching, thanks to the new preaching mode in the mobile app. I actually love using my iPad to preach.
15% Off Discount on Logos 9 Upgrade to Base Packages and 5 Free Books
From now till June 15, 2021, you can get 15% off a Base Package upgrade. To do that, follow this affiliate link, and you'll get a discount. Full-disclosure, I'll get a little kickback from Faithlife.
Follow that link, and not only will you get the 15% off discount when you use the code PARTNEROFFER9 at Checkout, but you can also get 5 free books. Select from 28 different books, including some great titles.
Here's a list of my recommendations.
- Spurgeon Commentary 1 Peter
- Lexham Research Commentary: Colossians
- St. Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians by George J. Ellicott
- The Essentials of Prayer by EM Bounds
- The Life of St. Paul by James Stalker
Faithlife offers a myriad of Base Packages. Here's what I recommend depending on what you already own.
- Logos 9 Bronze - Great for people who are just getting started.
- Logos 9 Gold - Jump to this level if you already own a pretty big library.
At the bottom of the page, you see a link to see the other Base Packages. Follow that to find the Logos 9 Upgrade packages for Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Messianic Jewish, Methodist & Wesleyan, Orthodox, Pentecostal & Charismatic, Reformed, SDA, or Catholic (Verbum) users.
Logos 9 Upgrade: Best Feature is New User Interface Tweaks
One improvement stands above the rest. I like the features listed above, but the simple tweaks to the user interface on the computer version of Logos 9 made the most difference in my productivity with the Logos 9 upgrade six months after Faithlife released the update.
It sounds crazy, but the new button on the upper right corner of the screen helps users a lot. First, you can quickly jump to your account to see what you have or what pre-orders you might see published soon. You can also jump to Your Faithlife Profile, where you can interact with other users and see answers to your questions.
The other amazing new tweaks include transforming the program toolbar. For example, right-click on a book icon that you placed on the toolbar like I did as seen in the image above.
you now get a drop-down menu holding those books in that folder.
The new tweaks to the toolbar give you a drop-down list of icons from the toolbar that no longer fit on a narrow screen on small screens. See the image below to understand what I mean.
There's a new light mode, dark mode toggle in settings. People love dark mode, and I don't understand why. But if you do, then you now have it.
Other New Features in Logos 9 Upgrade
Logos seems most proud of the other new features in Logos, which include...
- Factbook
- Sermon Builder
- Sermon Manager
- Counseling Guide
- Improved Reading Plans
I like all of those, and you should see my review linked in the top section of this post from ChurchTechToday. The second feature I'm most excited about also doesn't seem big. Faithlife now added a feature to organize my library in a more useful way when I fun a Passage Guide.
Go to the Commentaries section of the Passage Guide and look in the upper right corner. You'll see ways to sort your books including...
- Priority - follows your customization where you rank certain commentaries above the others.
- Series - groups the commentaries by series, like the New American Commentary series or the Word Biblical Commentary series.
- Author - who wrote it?
- Denomination - what is the denomination of the publisher/editor/author depending on the commentary.
- Type - is it a technical or devotional commentary?
- Era - when was it published?
Mobile App Improvements
Logos added the Factbook to the mobile app too. You'll find it in the menu button in the lower right corner.
Faithlife added a preaching mode to the mobile app. That way, you can build and manage your sermons in the computer app. Then you can put your app in preaching mode and preach from the app.
12 Days of Logos Deals and Demo in Logos 9
The 12 Days of Logos brings steep discounts on Logos Bible Software books and tools as well as packages. Use the link in this article to save up to 60%.
Every year Faithlife offers what they call the 12 Days of Logos, where they offer 12 different products for steep discounts. That benefits you if you want to buy any of these 12 products for Logos 9. We'll take a look at them and give you some tips as to which ones you should consider and maybe avoid.
What are the 12 Products Available This Year?
On our list this year, we get some really great books and tools for Logos 9 and Logos Bible Software, which you can use with their latest desktop version of Logos 9 or you can get it on their mobile Logos 9 Mobile app. They also work on the web app.
Here's the list of the 12 products and how much they cost. If you want to buy one of these, I ask you to consider using my affiliate link because it helps me continue my work of writing reviews and how-to articles about Bible software and ministry-related tech topics.
- Bible for Everyone Commentary Collection (35 vols.) 62% off, $119.99 sale price
- Challies Recommends: Best Old Testament Commentaries (55 vols.) 50% off, $442.99 sale price
- Romans-Philemon, 21 vols. (New Testament Technical Commentary Collection) 65% off, $232.99 sale price
- New Studies in Biblical Theology Series Collection | NSBT (50 vols.) 52% off, $299.99 sale price
- NIV Application Commentary: New Testament | NIVAC (20 vols) 55% off, $199.99 sale price
- New International Commentary: Old Testament | NIC (28 vols.) 51% off, $499.99 sale price
- Popular Patristics Series Collection (53 vols) 54% off, $229.99 sale price
- Ancient Christian Reference Collection (55 vols.) 50% off, $549.99 sale price
- Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary | SHBC (36 vols.) 55% off, $499.99 sale price
- Welwyn Commentary Series | WCS (56 vols.) 60% off, $199.99 sale price
- New Covenant Commentary Series | NCCS (16 vols.) 54% off, $99.99 sale price
- The Life Application Bible Commentary (17 vols.) 60% off, $49.99 sale price
Let me highlight a couple of the above books. I use the New International Commentary: Old and New Testament sets regularly. Faithlife is offering the Old Testament package for only $500, a 51% discount. That's steep. It's both an easy to understand commentary, but has a technical level of information for advanced Bible students and people who teach and preach the Bible.
The NIV Application Commentary: New Testament comments on the text and then offers some practical application to the commentary. This helps the average Bible student or the teacher/preacher alike. You'll pay only $200, a great price for this product.
The Life Application Bible Commentary focuses on real-world use of the teachings of scripture to help Christians in their growth. It comes in at 60% off.
Deals on Logos 9 Packages
In addition to the above tools, you can also get one of the Logos 9 packages available from Faithlife with some deals. Logos identifies them by colorful names like Silver, Gold, and Platinum. You can follow my affiliate link, which gives me a 5% commission to help me continue writing helpful reviews and how-to articles about Bible software and ministry tech.
M1 MacBook Pro and Bible Study Apps
How well do the top five Mac Bible study apps run on the new M1 MacBook Pro? We ran five of the best programs and share our results.
Are you curious how the new M1 MacBook Pro handles Bible study apps and programs? I was too and couldn't wait to test this out. You can find the results as I tested Logos 9, Accordance 13, Olive Tree, Laridian Pocket Bible, and e-Sword X on the new M1 MacBook Pro.
UPDATE: Added a video under the Logos 9 on M1 MacBook Pro section below.
Why I Bought the M1 MacBook Pro
For the past year, I actually transitioned to a Windows-centric computer experience by giving my 2018 MacBook Pro to my son, a videographer and photographer who really wanted to go Mac. I bought an excellent HP Spectre x360 13 2-in-1, but then reluctantly decided to go back to Apple after my office PC failed and I got a Mac mini from a friend.
I bought the 2020 MacBook Pro that Apple released earlier this year based on Intel's processor. That was in late October and then Apple released the new M1 MacBook Air, M1 MacBook Pro, and M1 Mac mini. Fortunately, I got mine at Best Buy and I could return so I did and picked the M1 MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM and 500. It's not the highest-end M1 MacBook, but it's what could get in exchange without paying too much more.
Best Buy shocked me and told me I could get the new computer the next day, but that was wrong. It showed up the Monday before Thanksgiving instead of one week before Thanksgiving. That's not bad considering Apple shows a date in mid-December before you can get one directly from them.
Installing Bible Programs on the M1 MacBook Pro
The new M1 MacBook Pro showed up and I unboxed it and starting setting things up. Soon I was installing my Bible study programs. I use three Bible apps but for this test, I installed five of the best Mac Bible study programs you can buy today.
- Accordance 13
- e-Sword X
- Laridian Pocket Bible
- Logos 9
- Olive Tree Bible Study
For the most part, these apps installed without much concern. It's interesting that the first time you install a program that's not optimized for the M1 chip, macOS 11 Big Sur will ask you if you want to install something called Rosetta 2. It didn't take long to download and install, but it stops you from launching your app. I had to launch Logos 9 again after Rosetta 2 finished installing.
The other apps installed quickly. Accordance takes a little while to download your books if you have a large library. Olive Tree Bible Reader, Laridian PocketBible and e-Sword X don't take as long. In fact PocketBible has the best installation process of the group. It takes little time at all.
Logos 9 on M1 MacBook Pro
Let's first talk about Logos 9 because it's the most demanding of the five programs. It Typically, I start the installation, plug in my laptop, and leave for hours. When I come overnight or after a full day away, it finishes and we're ready to study the Bible.
As you can see from the video above showing the installation and indexing process, it took 3 hours and 47 minutes to install, download my 27GB library, and index the library. The download seemed faster than normal. Then indexing went quickly.
My friend LaRosa compared the indexing process to taking a long trip on an Interstate. It takes a little while to get on the road, but once you do and get up to speed, it runs quickly. Then, the off-ramp time slows down. That's how things went with the M1 MacBook Pro. It starts slow, speeds up, and then finishes slowly.
Normally, when Logos 9 indexes the library it takes up a lot of resources and you can't really use your computer much. You can, but it's infuriating because Logos takes up all the memory and processor. However, with the M1 MacBook Pro, Logos 9 ran slowly, but the rest of the system ran smoothly. For example, I hit the Home button in Logos 9 and scrolled through the Home page. It stuttered running haltingly. It's not smooth at all.
In spite of how slowly Logos 9 itself performs, the rest of the system runs smoothly during the indexing. That's abnormal with Intel or AMD based computers. They usually don't run smoothly.
Battery Life for Running Bible Study Apps on M1 MacBook Pro
The battery life stood out on my new M1 MacBook Pro. The process of installing Logos 9 on laptops usually kills a battery. On my previous HP x360 13 and my older 2018 MacBook Pro, I would never attempt to install Logos without plugging in. I didn't have to on this computer.
Add the wonderfully bright screen and crisp text, you get a fantastic experience writing and reading. I put the screen at 50 percent and it looks like other computers I'm used to using when they are set to 75-80 percent.
After I killed the battery installing Logos I used it for a couple hours and went to bed with it at 40 percent. This morning, after running on battery at 50% for about 4 hours, my battery reads 76% left. That's fantastic. My 2020 12.9-inch iPad Pro doesn't last as long in real-world use.
Hard to Tell Difference on M1 MacBook Pro
What's the final takeaway for running Bible study apps on the M1 MacBook Pro? For four out of our five apps, there's little to no different. I couldn't tell the difference between running Accordance, e-Sword X, Olive Tree Bible, or PocketBible on this computer.
Logos 9 is a little different. Installation was a slightly better experience. You can set it to download and index your library and get some other work done while it happens in the background. That's a huge improvement compared to running the program's installation on other computers.
Once you install Logos 9, it runs well. There's one issue that's more a Big Sur problem than an M1 MacBook Pro problem. Over in the Logos 9 forum, there's a post listing one issue as follows:
The Logos Desktop Team has tested Logos 9 and Logos 8 on macOS 11 "Big Sur." So far we discovered some minor styling issues (see below), but have not encountered any major issues.
Known Issue: Table of Contents arrows are duplicated.From Logos 9 forum
The above issue with arrows is an extremely minor issue. You may find others, but right now that's all.
In another Logos forum post, Phil Gons from Faithlife said the company has no definite plans to make Logos 9 run as an M1 Mac application. That's not saying they won't do it, but they are not announcing anything publicly. I'd expect this to take a long time since the current version of the software works so well. I look forward to the time when these five all run as a native app.
There's one thing that you can say about running Bible study applications on the new M1 MacBook Pro. Launching these apps takes a lot less time than they used to. Of our five, Laridian PocketBible and e-Sword X jump onto the screen instantly. Olive Tree Bible Reader loads in a couple of seconds and Accordance launches in a few seconds. Sadly, Logos 9 still takes longer than the others. But it loads faster than it did on Intel Macs. Running the programs speeds up on these new M1 chips too.
Logos 9 Upgrade is Here: Get a Discount Here
Logos 9 upgrade came out and you can get 15% off using my affiliate link, but should you? We’ll give you a recommendation here.
Logos 9 dropped October 26 with some updates to the program. A lot of you will upgrade and you can get Logos 9 for 15% off using this link.
For full disclosure, Logos gives me a commission if you use this link. I don’t normally use affiliate links, but I’m placing this here so you can save some money by buying the upgrade using that link. If you do it helps me out too.
I wrote an article at Church Tech Today about what are the most important updates to the program. To learn more for yourself before that post comes out, head over to the Logos 9 page at the company’s website.
Logos 9: Top 5 New Features
The best new features included in the Logos 9 upgrade includes the following top 5 new features...
- Factbook Upgrade - click a word in your text with the Factbook feature turned using a toolbar button and it opens the Factbook to that subject.
- Sermon Builder - an upgrade sermon planning feature that takes passages from your favorite lectionary and populates a calendar that you can display in list mode or a kind of pie graph.
- Commentaries in Guides - users can now sort commentaries section in the Passage Guide by different ways including the author’s denomination.
- Dark Mode - I’m not a fan of dark mode, but people love it, so it’s here in Logos 9.
- Images in Notes - you can now add images to your notes.
That’s not a complete list, but it shows what most people will find interesting.
I will upgrade because I am that guy who always wants the latest greatest of the programs I use. If there’s an update to Windows, macOS, MS Office, I’ve used it in Beta for the last few months to help write my article for Church Tech Today.
Logos upgrades every couple of years. If you’re a Logos fan you’ll likely want to get the upgrade. For Wordsearch users who came over when Logos bought it, you may want to wait till you get used to using Logos 8 to make sure you’re a good candidate for the update
Logos 9 Free Engine Upgrade
The free Logos 9 software without all the new bells and whistles will likely show up in 2021. It comes with nothing but the basic program update. However, you can’t get it this year. So, if you’re patient and don’t think you really see anything that interesting in the new features list, then hold off till next year.