Ipod and Iphone Bible apps review

Free bible readers

1. Logos This is a great little app. It runs really well on the iphone or the ipad. The free version has some basic bibles on it – (but not the NIV, TNIV or ESV). There are also some free books available to read through it which are mainly devotional reading tools like “Morning and evening.” The real genius of this app comes into play if you also have the LOGOS Bible software which then allows you to sync up as much or as little of your LOGOS library onto your mobile device. I am still wrestling with the LOGOS 4 alpha version for the Mac which works pretty well – but am having some problems importing my library from the Libronix software (the earlier version that came with the excellent IVP reference collection / Tyndale Library). The thought of being able to carry a complete set of commentaries and Bible dictionaries in the palm of my hand is delicious indeed. Watch this space as this can only get better and better.

4/5 stars

2. ESV Bible Regular readers will know that I am not a big fan of the ESV. (issues of readability and the philosophy of translation). But I must say this is the best iPhone / iPad free Bible software I have ever seen. The user interface is a thing of beauty. I think in a race I could beat you to any book , chapter and verse of the Bible even as compared to a printed Bible. The iphone app is excellent but once you put it on an ipad the readability is even better than a printed bible. You don’t need to be online to access the full Bible text which is a trump card when compared to all the other free bible apps. There is a full note taking facility – cut and paste bible passages out of the programme into other apps and ofcourse the social networking possiblities are built right in – so you can tweet your favourite verse. If someone who doesn’t like the translation is using this as his standard mobile Bible you know the interface must be good. (come on TNIV publishers its time to raise your mobile game.)

5/5 stars

3. Youversion This app used to be my favourite bible programme. It works on a whole range of platforms including – blackberry, android and iphone. Its real strengths are access to lots of different translations (including TNIV, NIV, Message…) and the social networking possibilities are through the roof – including the abilitly to have people follow the powerpoint from your sermon on their mobile devices and to do immediate surveys (I must admit I have never managed to get the survey thing working myself). The downside is that it is a little slow to boot up on my blackberry bold and also that you can only access TNIV when you have an internet connection – not so good in my local church (or my office).  It is a very good app though and for me the best one on the blackberry at the moment.

4/5 stars

4. Holy Bible (HD)

Simple Bible reading programme for the ipad – uses the ipad’s screen resolution very well – free translations include NET Bible, King James Version, Byzantine Greek, American Standard Version etc. But not the premium translations : New King James, Todays NIV etc. One really nice feature is the ability to split the screen into two so you can compare translations.

3.5/5 stars

.

.

Olive Tree Bible reader – This is another standard Bible reader for the Ipad / Iphone. It has been optimised for the ipad’s screen. All the usual features are there. There are some free bibles available but the premium translations will cost you from £12.99 for the NIV to 23.99 for the ESV study Bible. But others will cost you as much as £99.99 so becareful what you click on! One feature for die hard John Piper fans is you can download the transcripts of 1200 of his sermons and search them all by passage or subject. So you should never run out of reading material on your device.

4/5 stars

.

6. Mantis Bible

The King James Version of the this app is free. It is a pretty standard format bible reading programme with all the usual features – history, notes and search. The highlighter option is pretty clunky as you have to individually select words to highlight them. NIV Study bible is 11.99 on the iphone or the ipad.

3/5 stars

7. Pocket Sword

There’s a lovely user interface on this KJV only free download. It is availabe for Iphone and not yet optimised for the ipad. Apparently you can use the ESV on this app for free – but I couldn’t find a way to do this. One nice feature is one tap access to a commentary on the passage you are looking at. It comes with Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary. It’s nicely done but because I could only get the KJV working I can’t give it top marks. It is available on a range of platforms though.

3/5 stars

7. Wave Bible

This iphone only app is another example of a lovely user interface this time with a couple of extra Bibles available for free – New English Translation and the mysterious “God’s Word Translation”. You can purchase the NIV for $14.99 not sure whether you get this in dollars if you try and purchase outside of america – if you do its a slightly cheaper way to get the NIV. Some nice features – really like the interface for finding bible passages and even though I hate the thought of it a random verse shaker – does look pretty cool when it flips through all the possibilities. But what are you supposed to do with a random verse finder??? Its really easy to compare Bible translations with just a touch of a button. So kudos to the designers.

3.5/5 Stars

8. Red Letter Days

This is a great app to encourage tweenagers  and teenagers to download. It automatically sends them a key verse from the red letter parts of the Bible – ie the parts that record Jesus’ direct speech. Well made and simple to use – the guys at Kore have provided a really nice app here. Kudos guys !

4/5

KJV HD

This is a great IPAD Bible, especially when the NIV version is only £3.99 which as far as I can find is the cheapest way to download the NIV onto your Ipad. A really good 4 page tutorial greets you on start up – its very easy to highlight and export verses (I find this really helpful for sermon preparation on an Ipad). The split screen allows you to keep a Bible passage that you are looking at on one side and then scroll down to another part of the Bible on the other screen – in the same translation, this is really helpful for Biblestudy. So this has some really good features on it and I am very tempted to buy the NIV version. Finding the passage you are looking for is a breeze too. So Kudos to the team

4/5 Stars

Audio Bibles

1. BIBLEIS

A very impressive audio Bible – it needs to be online to work as it does not download the whole Bible onto your device. It has some sound effects to accompany the readings. There is a single voice narrator – but he does read very well.

3.5/5 stars

1. Daily Audio Bible

If you like to have the Bible read to you – here’s a neat app that will automaticaly download a free bible reading each day.  It has not been optimised for the ipad you download a daily dose of proverbs or a daily kids bible reading or a process that works through the whole Bible. The funk factor has been attempted in the recordings. The kids version has two cute little kids reading and chatting together commenting on when their birthdays are and then they get round to doing the reading. They seem to be having a lot of fun doing it – and read pretty well but do stumble over a few of the words as kids tend to do. The kids have a great little discussion afterwards which made me really smile. It sounds like two unsupervised kids chatting a way – which was kind of cool and funny but might be annoying for some listeners.

Here’s a snippet:

“here’s a little newsflash for you – these guys were around before taperecorders.”

“Question – were the Jesus people around before the cave men?”

“Answer – Adam and Even were around before cave men, but some people think  they were around on the other side of the earth… but you ask some very profound question”

“Question – what does profound mean?”

For the daily proverbs reading you get a BRIAN who reads in a kind of voice over man kind of way. So you’ll either love this one or hate it. They need a lot of bandwidth so I would advise using it where you have a good wifi connection.

3/5 stars (but an extra star for being creative 4/5!)

Paid for apps

1. New Daylight

Great to see bible notes coming into the 21^st century by making their readings available on the ipod/ ipad. This is a simple application that allows you to pay to subscribe to daily bible readings.  Keeping the same high standards of the print version by simply allowing the same text to come to your mobile device this is an easy to use program with text that is eay to read. Would love to see some development – greater access to archive material – a more graphically rich presentation. Nevertheless if you like reading daily light this is the app for you. It is optimised to work well on an ipod or an iphone.

2. Wordlive

A demo version wasn’t available for this app. It is £2.99 to download. If you have used the wordlive website it is basicaly a way of accessing the content from there www.worldlive.com in a slightly easier way for iphones. The alternative would be simply putting a link to the website on your iphone and then accessing the content for free.  There’s a review on the app store from Keith Cival the CEO of Scripture Union who says : “the app takes wordlive to a whole new level of accesability and improves the user expereince for mobile users. Worth every penny and more!”

3. Twisted Scripture

I didn’t even download this. Its 59p for 60 short reflections on verses that are often taken out of context. From the looks of it – not worth the investment I am afraid.