iOS 11 and VerseWise Bible for iPad

A reminder that VerseWise Bible is now a "universal" app! A convenience to new users who don't want to buy both iPhone and iPad versions of the app but a bit of an inconvenience to some current users. My apologies!

The iPad-only version of the app has been discontinued and does not run on iOS 11 (due to a technical issue, not by my design).

The iPhone-only version of the app was updated to run on both iPhone and iPad. If you did not previously own the iPhone (now universal) version, you will need to purchase and download it. It from the App Store. You can find links here. (The links no longer work on desktop version of iTunes, tap on them from iPhone or iPad.)

If you were logged into iCloud on your iPad, you should be able to restore your bookmarks & highlights by going to the Settings screen (by tapping the "gear" button), selecting "iCloud Backups" and then selecting the most recent backup (listed first).

Again, apologies for the inconvenience! Please contact me if you have any questions.

v6.4.1 available in the App Store

v6.4.1 of VerseWise Bible, Orthodox Study Bible and Eastern Orthodox Bible are now in the App Store!

New in 6.4.1:
- Fixed some iCloud backup/restore issues

New in 6.4:
- Simplified Highlights & Bookmarks (they are once again conceptually separate)
- Added 3D Touch shortcuts to App icon, "Bible" and "Reading Plan"
- Fixed some Footnotes issues that occurred in Low Light mode
- Some other crash and minor bug fixes

Also new in 6.4 (OSB):

- Also added 3D Touch shortcut "Today's Reading"

- Fixed problem navigating on iPad to "Today's Reading" from apps such as "Orthodox Prayers for Parents"

- Fixed Mark 15:26 (added missing "THE KING OF THE JEWS")

And in 6.3:
- BIGGER TEXT (back by popular demand, adjust text size independent of system settings)
- Fixed crash that could occur when using filter on Book screen

v6.2 now in the App Store

v6.2 of VerseWise Bible, Orthodox Study Bible and Eastern Orthodox Bible are now in the App Store!

New in 6.2:

• iPad now has "low light" mode (see Settings)
• Share now works on iPad
• Fixed crash that could occur on Book screen
• Fixed crash that could prevent iCloud backup from completing
• Other minor fixes/improvements

v6.1 available in the App Store

And v6.1 of VerseWise Bible, Orthodox Study Bible and Eastern Orthodox Bible are now in the App Store!

The biggest change: greatly improved "Share" functionality. You can now easily share scriptures on Messages, Facebook, Twitter and more or save to Photos. Hope you like it!

I also fixed a Reading Plan issue that would select incorrect plan or cause crashes in Orthodox Study Bible.

Still have some things I want to improve in the short term, so v6.2 is in the works.

Orthodox Study Bible & Eastern Orthodox Bible updated

The Orthodox Study Bible and Eastern Orthodox Bible apps v6.0 are now available in the App Store!

They are now "universal" apps. Running them on the iPad now takes full use of its screen.

Bookmarks can now also be "unlisted". This is helpful if you want to highlight a verse but not have it appear in your bookmarks list.

Update now!

VerseWise Bible v6.0 now available

VerseWise Bible v6.0 is now available in the App Store!

It is now a "universal" app. The "iPhone" app has been updated to run on both iPhone and iPad. The separate "iPad" app is no longer available and will not be updated.

Bookmarks can now also be "unlisted". This is helpful if you want to highlight a verse but not have it appear in your bookmarks list.

VerseWise Bible is available as 4 different apps:

• King James Version (with optional deuterocanon)
• Douay-Rheims (an English translation of the Latin Vulgate)
• Revised Standard Version (with optional deuterocanon)
• Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.

(These links no longer work on desktop iTunes. Tap on them from your iPhone or iPad.)

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.

Orthodox Study Bible v5.0.1 now available

OSB v5.0.1 is now available in the App Store!

See my previous posts for details.

VerseWise Bible v5.0.1 for iPhone available

In 5.0.1:

• Minor bug fixes, textual corrections
• Fixed two crashes

See the 5.0 post for more.

This is now available for:

• King James Version
• Douay Rheims
• Revised Standard Version
• Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition
• Eastern Orthodox Bible

The Orthodox Study Bible update was also submitted but got hung up. It should be available in about a week.

Thank you to user Roberto for pointing out that an app icon is not displaying when VerseWise for iPhone is installed on an iPad. A fix will be uploaded to the store as soon as possible. With Apple taking a holiday break, however, it will probably be a couple weeks until it is available. My apologies!

VerseWise Bible KJV v5 available

VerseWise Bible for KJV v5 is now available in the App Store!

• Modernized interface for iOS 7 & 8
• Updated for iPhone 6 and 6+
• Uses Dynamic Type for increased readability
• Improved "low light mode"
• Other minor improvements and bug fixes

Please let me know if you see anything amiss! The next update will not be so long in coming.

Updates for the other iPhone versions will be available within a couple weeks. We'll see if I can update iPad after that.

iOS 7/8 update

Apologies for the lack of recent updates, but I'm still here! Distracted, but here.

An iOS 7/8 update is on the way. Just added support for iPhone 6 and 6+. It doesn't look like many of you have upgraded to the new models yet, but for those that have, a non-scaled app is on the way!

iPhone 5

iPhone 6

iPhone 6+

For those waiting for iPad news, I'm hoping to have more clarity have this month's Apple event. Rumor has it that there might be some interesting news regarding the sizing of apps on the screen. More to come.

Back to the start

Whatever could this mean?

VerseWise Bible v4.4.2 in the App Store

The iOS 5/6 bug fix update for iPhone that I mentioned previously is now in the App Store for VerseWise Bible King James Version, Douay-Rheims, Revised Standard Version and Revised Standard Version (Catholic Edition).

• Fixed some crashes (particularly in iOS 7)
• Fixed Facebook sharing to use native libraries and thus work how you'd expect (iOS 6+ only)
• Other minor fixes & enhancements

Working on a similar update for Eastern Orthodox Bible and Orthodox Study Bible.

iOS 7

Hello! iOS 7 will be coming out tomorrow so I thought I'd share an update.

I will be working on iOS 7 updates for the iPhone apps (KJV, DR, RSV, RSV-CE, EOB, OSB). The bad news is that these updates will not be able to support iOS 5 -- they will be iOS 6 & 7 only, if that. (There is a chance they'll be iOS 7 only if it becomes too difficult to support both. But most every device that supports iOS 6 also supports iOS 7, so I don't think that'll be a problem for most.)

Because there are still a couple fixes I want to send to the iOS 5 folks, I submitted what may be the final iOS 5/6 update to the App Store for KJV, DR, RSV and RSV-CE today. EOB and OSB will also be updated soon.

The current versions in the App Store work pretty well in iOS 7. I did notice a little more crashing in iOS 7; today's submission contains a fix for that.

I've been using iOS 7 for the past week. After some initial disorientation, I am coming around. I am looking forward to the apps I use updating to the new aesthetic and am looking forward to updating VerseWise as well. Particularly there are some advances in text display that I would like to use. (I guess that's an argument for going iOS 7-only.)

Stay tuned!

Orthodox Study Bible 1.2 in App Store

In case you haven't noticed already, OSB 1.2 is now in the App Store!

• Fixed crashes in start-up and Today's Reading 
• Fixed Facebook sharing to use native libraries and thus work how you'd expect (iOS 6 only) 
• Fixed Isaiah 49 (no longer appended to chapter 48)
• Fixed Wisdom of Sirach, Epistle of Jereimiah, Joel 3 & 4 entries in Reading Plans 
• Other minor fixes & enhancements

Unfortunately there still appear to be some start-up crashes. (Argh!) I haven't seen any crash reports coming in for Today's Reading, but let me know if you've seen one personally.

There is also a problem entering Today's Reading in landscape orientation. Will fix that!