1.1 & Search

If you've been following the 1.0.2 comments you know I've been plugging away on search functionality. Rather than waiting to deliver everything I had in mind, I wanted to get a basic search out to you all as soon as I could.

Well, I got a basic search done, but I'm not happy with the user interface so I'm going to refine it a little more before delivering it. Sorry to make you wait longer, but doing so will forestall a lot of "This is ugly!" emails from you with "I know!" replies from me. :)

That's not to say the functionality will not be refined after its initial release. I'm just delaying the initial release a little more.

I think it'll be worth the wait. Thank you for your patience!

Update 8/29: Almost done! Just need to do some final testing over the weekend. Hopefully it'll be in the store late next week. I'll try to post some screenshots tonight.

Update 8/30: Some screenshots. You'll notice that since I had to create a text preview for the search results, I re-used it for the chapter view. I'd been intending to use that empty space to show each chapter's first verse all along, finally got around to it.



Update 9/2: Working on some memory issues that cause VW to crash after heavy search usage. Thank you to my beta testers whose iPhones seem to be more sensitive to the issue than my iPod! I really want to get this out the door to you guys, but I think it'll be worth the several-day delay to make the app as stable as possible.

Update 9/5: Sound the horns of happiness! 1.1 has been uploaded to the store! Past updates have taken 4 days to be approved by Apple, but those were uploaded on Mondays. We'll see if it takes longer due to the weekend.

1.0.2 coming

A boring 1.0.2 release has been uploaded to the iTunes store. It should be approved in the next couple of days.

Don't feel obligated to download it if you aren't having the Hints pop-up problem. The release adds a setting that lets you turn them off.

Update: Made it into the store on Friday.

Settings

There have been several questions about exactly where the VerseWise settings are located. They can be found in the "standard" iPhone/iPod settings area. I put "standard" in quotes because despite Apple recommending developers put most of their settings there, many apps have created their own settings areas. I may have to conform to the crowd eventually. :)

But here are where they're currently located. Exit out of VerseWise:

Look for the Settings icon and select it. It's the gray icon with the gears:

Scroll down the first Settings page, there will be a VerseWise selection towards the bottom.

Hints

I've gotten a couple emails (and a bad review in the app store) about the new hint pop-ups in 1.0.1. I had assumed since each hint only appeared once, they wouldn't be obtrusive, but I guess some people disagree. What do you think?

There's the possibility that the hint functionality isn't working for everyone as I intended. Anyone seeing the same hint appear more than once? Do they *never* go away?

Update: I haven't nailed down the exact problem some people are having (and why it's happening only to a few) but enough people are commenting about dismissed pop-ups repeatedly returning, I'll send out an update that allows hints to be turned off in Settings. I hope to get it uploaded by Monday, August 11th. Sorry for the inconvenience!

v1.0.1 coming

We're beta testing a 1.0.1 release this weekend. I foresee uploading it to the store on Monday. It may take a while for it to actually appear in the store, depending on what the backlog at Apple is.

Along with some minor bug fixes, I've added pop-up hints to point out some of the possibly less intuitive aspects of the app (like swiping left & right to change chapters).

And yes, this is the first step towards new functionality in a 1.1 release. I just felt I had some 1.0 housekeeping to do before moving on to the fun, new stuff. Thank you for your patience.

Update: Uploaded Monday night.

Update: Released to store Friday night.

v1.0 bugs

Here's a list of 1.0 bugs that have been discovered and will be fixed in the next release.

• Sometimes won't return to proper screen when app is exited/restarted. (Main menu and sometimes Book and Chapter lists.)
• Defined defaults (such as autorotation and font size) do not take effect until user visits Settings.
• About and Contact pages can be entered (and viewed) in landscape mode.
• Hebrews and James should come after Philemon, not after 3 John.

To report a bug, please leave a comment.

If you're having trouble with VW crashing upon launch, this is an OS 2.0 problem. Please read this comment for a work-around.

Translations

Please leave a comment here with the Bible translation you'd most like to see.

I've had one vote for Reina-Valera (in Spanish), which definitely looks doable as the 1909 version is in the public domain. Which means no licensing necessary.

I've seen some complaints in the iPhone app store about the modern translations costing too much, some saying they'll wait for the "free" version. Unfortunately, the most modern translations will not be free any time soon. Those of us who want our Bibles installed on our devices locally will have to pay a fee to the publisher.

Now, if you're always connected to the internet and are willing to put up with the slower response, there are some web sites (and corresponding iPhone apps) that offer modern translations for free. Good for them! I'm glad such ministries exist. If anyone wants to underwrite, say, the NIV for VerseWise, contact me and I'll let you know where to send your checks. ;)

Not to say I'm not interested in modern translations. I have contacted some publishers. But when released, these versions of VerseWise will cost more than the King James and Reina-Valera versions, not because that's what *I* want but because that's what the licensing fees + app store overhead require.

Anyone know of good public domain Bible translations in other languages? Drop me a line.