v5.1.2 now available in App Store

VerseWise Bible / Eastern Orthodox Bible / Orthodox Study Bible v5.1.2 is now available in the App Store!

- Fixed persistent crash many iOS 8 users updating from 5.0 were seeing
- Fixed History so one can see entries >1 day old

VerseWise Bible, EOB, OSB v5.1.2 update submitted to App Store

A fix to the crashes some iOS 8 users have been seeing updating from 5.0 has been submitted to the App Store. A big thank you to Nicholas for helping me figure out a workaround for this!

And thank you all for your patience.

VerseWise Bible, EOB, OSB iPhone v5.1.1 available

UPDATE:
It looks like some people are still getting crashes! I'm in contact with a few, I hope to have a verified 5.1.2 fix soon. Apologies!

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The 5.1.1 update is now available in the App Store! It addresses a weird 5.1 start-up crash. For those that encountered it, the app could not be started, the app would crash repeatedly. With this update, the app may still crash once, but will recover and start okay the second time.

Here are the 5.1 highlights:

• Converted Highlights to "Bookmarks w/highlight" -- Highlights can now be easily browsed and tagged
• Added "experimental" back-ups of Bookmarks (& Highlights) to iCloud
• Fixed problems that could occur in History when changing time zones
• Fixed Settings screen to fill out iPhone 6 and 6+ screens
• Fixed problem with Highlights not appearing when scrolling between chapters
• Fixed crash going to Tags screen if no tags existed
• Tapping bookmark in Reading Plan no longer crashes
• Now built specifically for (and thus faster on) 64-bit devices
• Added "Bible in 1 year (mixed)" reading plan for non-deuterocanonical text
• Fixed Psalms and Proverbs references in "Bible in 1 year (mixed)" plan for deuterocanonical text
• Other minor corrections to plans and text
• Other minor fixes and improvements

VerseWise Bible, EOB, OSB v5.1 release

Some people are encountering a nasty start-up crash in the latest 5.1 update. I don't know how prevalent this is, but if you haven't updated yet, I'd recommend waiting for the 5.1.1 update I've submitted.

If you have already updated and you are reading this, congratulations, you've been spared. :)

Facebook

You may have noticed Facebook sharing is not pre-populating your selected scriptures currently. This appears to be a conflict with iOS 8 and the latest versions of the Facebook app. (If you delete the Facebook app, pre-populated sharing works fine.)

I don't think there is anything I can do in the short term, but I am monitoring the situation and am considering alternative methods of sharing.

Two possibilities are:

• Host the shared scriptures on a web site, sharing the link with Facebook rather than sharing the scripture text in your actual status (text would ideally be immediately displayed in the FB link preview)
• Creating an image of the text, sharing the image with Facebook

Let me know if you have a preference!

Orthodox Study Bible trade-offs

Some of you are unhappy with the latest big update to the Orthodox Study Bible app.

Some reviews in the App Store:

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New update of Orthodox Study Buble ★★
by Orthodoxlady - Version - 5.0.1 - Jan 7, 2015
I'm sure this is still a good app of this bible, however the newest update has done away with the attractive look of the app. I would rather have kept the ability to change font style in my own settings. Disappointed!!! ☹ Before the update this looked like an attractively formatted book, it is now just blah!

It's ok ★★
by Toughgirl96 - Version - 5.0.1 - Jan 5, 2015
I'd give a 5 star to the original app I bought, but one star to the update. I want it back how it was!!!

What happened? ★★★
by Kevin May - Version - 5.0.1 - Jan 9, 2015
I agree with the other reviews. What happened to the attractive design?

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First of all, thank you for the kind words about the original design! It (and what we did for the Eastern Orthodox Bible app) took a bit of work to develop, and I was also happy with the way it turned out. (Thank you to Zander Renault for the design help!)

Unfortunately it also took a bit of work to maintain. Adding the custom look made the code different enough from the "plain" VerseWise Bible app it's based on that whenever I fixed a bug or added a feature I risked having a difficult time integrating it with the OSB app code. This was technically doable but, VDUB Software being a part-time operation, it slowed development down. To a crawl at times. (I don't think any new features were added in 2014.)

And then a couple things happened:

• iOS 7
• iPhone 6 and 6+

iOS 7 looks a lot different than previous versions of iOS, but it also changed a lot under the covers. Updating the "plain" VerseWise Bible apps was going to require a fair amount of work. And given how simpler things could sometimes be difficult to integrate with the OSB app, this had to potential to be a nightmare.

And the iPhone 6 and 6+ were released. The iPhone 5 had lengthened the height of the iPhone 4, but maintained the same width, so adjusting to the new size was not always difficult. The new 6 and 6+, however, offered two completely new screen sizes, different in height and width. None of the current custom assets were going to work.

So ... given that I wanted to support the iPhone 6 and 6+ screen sizes as soon as possible, start releasing updates in a timely fashion again and work on new features, I decided to start over. The OSB app would return to the common VerseWise Bible app codebase. 

Some think the iOS 7 looks "plain"; I like to think of it as "clean" or "straightforward". I apologize to those who prefer a more distinctive look, but the choice really is between the app being distinctive or the app having new features. 

What new features you ask? Things like storing bookmarks and highlights on iCloud so they can be easily copied to more than one device. Things like being able to configure "Today's Reading" to use a different jurisdiction's readings or having the reading appear in the "Today" view of your phone. Things like an iPad version.

I'm excited about the possibilities for the upcoming year! I hope you are too. Thank you for your support and your patience.