Tag Archives: bible software

Review: Olivetree Biblereader for Mac

Olivetree Biblereader for Mac version 5.0.2 is available on Apple’s App Store.  The system requirements are as follows:

Mac OS X 10.7 or later, 64-bit processor

First, let me say that I absolutely love the iPhone version of the Biblereader+ and have been using Biblereader+ starting with PalmOS, migrating over to Windows Mobile 2003, and the eventually moving to the iPhone.  The reader has always been solid on mobile platforms, and some would argue that they are the leader in mobile Bible viewers.  So needless to say I was very excited to learn that they had finally gone over to making a Bible reader for a Desktop / Laptop operating system.  I was also slightly disappointed to learn it was only available for Lion!  Fortunately for Apple, I just had to try it out for myself, so I’ve upgraded to Lion last night for the sole purpose of getting Olivetree’s Biblereader for Mac.  It is easy to install, just go to the Mac Store and download / install Biblereader.  My initial reactions are very positive.  Accordance Bible could learn a thing or two about interface design from Olivetree.

The left hand side of the screen is taken up by a quick access list which displays recently viewed Bibles, or all Bibles depending on the configuration you’ve set up.  The bibles can be downloaded to your App with the built in downloader.  If you’ve been a user of the free mobile Biblereader then the interface of the Mac edition will come naturally to you as the design seems to have been imported from the iPhone version of their App.  For instance, on the left is a screenshot of the famous verse chooser that they’ve been using for quite some time on the iPhone (and I assume the droid as well).  In three clicks you’re taken to the exact verse you want to read in whatever Bible you happen to have open at the time.  This is the easiest bible browser I’ve come accross on the mobile platform and is infanately more useable than flipping through a long list in sequential order.   By clicking on a verse number it allows you to enter a comment on that verse which you may then sync with Olivetree’s cloud service to allow syncing between your laptop and mobile phone device.

By highlighting a portion of text, you will see a plus sign pop up.  Click on that plus sign to open up the menu shown on the right which allows you to enter a note on that portion of selected text, highlight that text in a color or bookmark that text.  The whole look and feel of it seems polished.  By clicking the little arrow icon as shown on the left, you will expand the currently selected window into it’s own window.  Also, to add bookmarks is a simple as clicking the ribbon in the top left hand corner of the bible or book you are in.  See the picture on the right for a screenshot of what the ribbon looks like.  Olivetree should be commended on the work they have accomplished with BibleReader Mac.  Now the one place they don’t excel is in speed of searching.  Now with Accordance (My choice for gold standard in search speed) searching is near instantaneous.  So quick it is impossible to time with a stop watch, however with Biblereader there is a definite lag.  You can literally count one thousand one… one thousand two before the hits appear.  Now as to how they are displayed, it is easy to tell that they are porting this over from iOS devices.  The search results pane are very similar to what you’d expect to see on a mobile phone App.  The other interesting thing about it is all the books you’ve purchased for the mobile reader can be downloaded for free on the Mac version.  Olivetree also has some competitive pricing on their texts.  A lot more competitive than Accordance which seems to want to break the bank even when buying public domain texts!  All-in-all I’d give this App solid marks in just about every category.

Review: Accordance 9.5.1

Accordance 9.5.1, a review.

Accordance is a Bible study program designed for the Macintosh operating system.  The specifications for running Accordance 9.5.1 are as follows:

Accordance 9 is fully Intel native and optimized for Mac OS 10.6 and up. It also runs on PowerPC Macs and OS 10.4 and up (users with earlier Mac OS X or OS 7-9 can install the Classic version).

With the advent of Accordance 9.3, OakTree has created an enhanced user interface designed for new users to immediately jump into using Accordance.  It is called the Assistant Window.

The Read section allows the user to type in a verse or book of the bible and open a window displaying the passage in the user’s preferred bible.  Alternatively, it also allows the user to open a window displaying devotional readings to choose from.

The next section, Find, allows the user to locate word or words in a wide range of selections wether it be the bible, or User add-on modules and texts.

The last section, labeled Learn, includes hyperlinks to Oaktree’s various resources for learning how to use the software including the built in help and the Accordance Forum.

The assistant window is one step in improving Accordance’s usability for the average experienced Mac user who is new to Accordance.  Accordance has been notoriously known as non-intuitive for the average user.  It relies on keyboard commands and menu options often buried in menues.

The main window is known as a workspace.

This is a screenshot of the main view of Accordance.  The focus is on the search features.  At the top of the screen you’ll see a search bar with various options to allow you to search words or verses.  The search algorithm is extremely fast.  In fact it is the fastest search algorithm of any bible software I have tested wether PC or Mac.

Checking the interlinear checkbox immediately opens the English, Greek (Hebrew) the Strong’s number and the parts of speech the word belongs to.  This is very handy for conducting word studies or verse studies.  Triple clicking a word will open the default lexicon and display details of the underlining Greek (Hebrew) word in a separate workspace.

Although this is a very powerful search program, (for example right click and choose search for… lemma, root, inflected or tag in any appropriately tagged or marked bible such as the Novum Testamentum Graece (Tischendorf)), it is sometimes unclear on how to search through all texts and modules you might have purchased, or user created modules you might have made using Accordance’s built in user module authoring system.  To search through everything in your whole entire library, for example, you must go to Amplify>Search>Search all…

The resource pallette as shown on the left provides an interesting way to access your resources.  By clicking the appropriate icon you have access to purchased English, Hebrew, Greek and graphical texts and modules.  One of my favorite resources and one I personally think should be included in the base software package is the timeline module.  A screen capture is shown on the right of the timeline module.  It is a graphical representation of the history of bible people and kingdoms.  Not only that, but it also displays the timelines of contemporary histories of nations such as the Chinese and the Egyptian dynasties.  Another way cool feature of the timeline is the ability to add your own events to the timeline.  There are also alternative timelines labeled ‘conservative’ and ‘critical’ which will shift the dates based on which-ever timeline you believe to be more correct.

The program is well designed with a very active user community who enjoy sharing tips and hints on the Accordance Forums.  If you get stuck with a particular problem, more than likely either Helen, Dr. J or one of the other community users will be able to answer your questions or point you in the right direction.  My username there is fireandsalt, which will probably be no surprise to those who know me as I tend to use that username all over the internet on various bible, theology, and techie forums.

All in all I give this the following ratings:

OliveTree now available for Lion!

Olivetree has been famous for making BibleReader+ for a wide variety of smartphones and pdas for quite a number of years.  I have used the PocketPC, Palm and iPhone versions of their products.  I must say that for readability and number of free resources as well as for the low price of the paid modules, BibleReader+ is hard to beat!  Well now they have finally released their bible app for the Mac!  I am glad but a little disappointed as it is for OSX version 10.7 (Lion) only.  Considering the majority of Mac users are still using Snow Leopard, I think it is a bad move to release only the 10.7.x compatable version.

But still I applaud them finally going into the desktop platforms and hope they continue with developing it for both Windows as well as Snow Leopard users.