BibleReader by Olive Tree Bible Software

The folks at Olive Tree have finally begun to release bible packages over iTunes. They have also offered free and/or early release products to bloggers willing to blog about their software.

Needless to say, I signed up immediately. I've managed to get the beta loaded up on my iPod Touch and it appears to be working fine, so I think I did it right (it was a might complicated for this non-techie).

Here's a list of what I've found on the beta version of BibleReader:

1. Bibles: 21st century KJV, ASV, Amplified Bible, Darby's New Translation, ESV 07 (i.e., the update), ESV (i.e., the original), French Darby 1991, German Luther Bible 1912, International Standard Version, Italian Bible, JPS Tanakh, KJV, Modern KJV, New Century Version, NET Free, NIrV, NIV, NKJV, NLT, Phillips NT, RSV, The Message, TNIV, Weymouth NT, Wuest NT, Young's Literal Translation.
2. Commentaries: Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown; Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary.
3. Cross References: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
4. eBooks: 22 mostly older works of a pastoral and/or devotional nature, 9 by F. B. Meyer and also includes classics like Pilgrim's Progress and Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
   

There are a few big translations that are missing (NASB, NRSV, HCSB and the major Catholic versions), but they are apparently in development. They are planning on releasing almost everything available on Palm and Windows Mobile for the iPhone (potentially over 500 resources). We can therefore expect original language tools like those available on these other platforms. My hope and expectation is that they'll eventually get around to releasing something like the Scholars Collection for the iPhone.

I'll have a review or two in the next week to ten days, after I've had a chance to toy with it. For now, go and read Rick Mansfield's review of Olive Tree's offerings so far.



BTW, If you are thinking of purchasing one of Olive Tree's packages (they have a free Bible Reader and an ESV package so far), you might want to hold off a bit while Olive Tree resolves some issues with Apple.

Right now, if you buy a package, and then decide to add more texts to it, you'll end up with two or more separate apps instead of one app with both text packages in it. This is because Apple insists on all apps being sold through iTunes. There's a good explanation of what's happening in the Olive Tree forums here.

The long and short of it is that you might want to wait until Olive Tree offers a package with everything you want already included in it so that you don't end up with multiple apps on your iPhone/iPod Touch screen instead of one master app with everything in it. Probably, the issue will be resolved so that it won't matter, but Apple can be pretty stubborn (read: "pigheaded") about such things so I'd advise people to wait to see what happens.