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YouVersion for Readers and Speakers of Korean Around the World

Now, for the first time, the Bible App™ and YouVersion.com both offer the opportunity for literally tens of millions of native Korean speakers and readers the world over to connect both with the Bible and with the global YouVersion community. As YouVersion’s gracious publishing partners continue to provide additional Bibles in several languages, we’re now thrilled to be able to offer you such popular, easy-to-understand Korean versions as 개역한글, 새번역, and 현대인의 성경. 

Of course, the YouVersion experience is much more than Bibles. Our amazing volunteers are literally changing the world, working together to provide Korean speakers with all that YouVersion has to offer. This comprehensive set of tools is designed to help Korean speakers engage with God’s Word as easily as possible—entirely in their own language—including menus, email exchanges, conversations on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, reading plans—and even technical support!

Korean readers were already one of YouVersion’s largest, most active segments, with an average of 150,000 people a month installing the Korean version of the Bible App onto their devices. And with the announcement now of our complete Korean launch, we only expect that number to grow.

Koreans in North and South Korea. Koreans represent a huge, ever-growing segment of the overall YouVersion community. Wikipedia says that Korean is the official language of both North and South Korea, encompassing about 78 million speakers worldwide. And according to The World Factbook, South Korea (known officially as the Republic of Korea) is the 26th most populous nation in the world, home to just under 49 million people. North Korea is 48th, claiming about 24 and a half million people.

Koreans Elsewhere. Of course, Koreans don’t live only in South and North Korea. Another Wikipedia article estimates that an additional 7 million Koreans live outside the two Koreas, with some of the largest concentrations settling in China (2.3 million), the United States (2.1 million), and Japan (just under 1 million). The remaining number are dispersed literally all over the world.

If you speak or read Korean, the YouVersion community is excited to officially welcome you into our global community of brothers and sisters. We’d love to connect with you. It’s our sincere desire to see the life-changing story of God’s love reach more people than ever before—no matter what language you speak, or where you live.

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All-New Bible App for Windows Phone!

For this release of the Bible App™ for Windows Phone—Version 2.0—we wanted to give you the best app experience possible. And we decided the best way to do that was to rewrite it from the ground up! So the Bible App for Windows Phone is all-new, ready for you right now at Windows Marketplace for Mobile. The Bible App’s functionality on Windows Phone now much more closely matches that of our other major platforms, including several practical improvements, like these:

  • Dashboard – The brand new Dashboard Launcher gives you instant access to the features you use most.
  • Search – Jump quickly to verses or passages based on keywords you enter.
  • Settings – When you sign in to the Bible App with your free YouVersion account, this update now lets you personalize how you use it, and it remembers your unique settings between uses.
  • Bible Reader – The Bible Reader keeps track of where you left off, returning you when you come back to the last version, book, and chapter you were reading. And it’s all-new, cleaner and faster loading, designed to make it comfortable for you to read for long periods, in any conditions.
  • Bookmarks – Bookmarks are a great way you can label verses—as many as you want—whether you want to share passages with friends, or simply to jump quickly to your own favorites.
  • Bible Plans – Take full advantage of the more than 150 Bible plans YouVersion has to offer, in 10 languages (so far). Bible plans make it easy for you to read the Bible on a schedule, just a little each day.

Get your update to the Bible App for Windows Phone now, and be sure to let us know on Facebook and Twitter what you think!

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Announcing YouVersion.com and the Bible App—Completely in Korean

Now you can experience both YouVersion.com and the Bible App™ entirely in Korean! While we’ve offered Korean as a language option at YouVersion.com for months, today’s announcement covers more territory. When the YouVersion community formally launches an additional language, what that means is that every single interaction you can have with YouVersion’s tools and community is now available completely in that language. Korean is our sixth total language launch. (English was first, followed by Norwegian, Spanish, Chinese, and most recently, Russian.)

Specifically, here are all the ways that the YouVersion community (that’s you!) can now engage with God’s Word in Korean:

  • Great Korean Bibles. YouVersion’s partners have graciously provided our community with high quality, widely read Korean versions of the Bible, versions like 현대인의 성경, 개역한글, and 새번역. (To pick one, check 한국어 near the bottom of the Versions page or, in the Bible App, click to change your current version and scroll to see the available Korean versions.)
  • Entire User Interface. Thanks once again to our world-changing community of YouVersion volunteers, when you select Korean as the default language on your device—whether on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Android, or BlackBerry—the Bible App displays all of your controls and menu options in that language.
  • Communication in Korean. Volunteers now make relevant YouVersion blog posts available in Korean. And when you initiate communication with YouVersion in Korean, your email and other responses will be in Korean as well.
  • Support in Korean. Now, you can even get help with the Bible App and YouVersion.com in Korean! When you have questions, YouVersion volunteers who speak Korean will be happy to assist you.

YouVersion’s vision has always been simple: To help people connect freely with God’s Word, as easily as possible, no matter where they live or what language they speak. If you have friends whose heart language is Korean, please share this great news about YouVersion.com and the Bible App with them. And be sure to come connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. We love hearing from you!

Keep checking back… To all our new Korean speakers: Welcome to our YouVersion family! We’re thrilled to have you join us. Over the next couple of weeks here on our blog, we’ll be providing more details about each individual piece of the complete Korean launch. We’re excited to share with you all that your community has to offer!

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Updated Bible App for iPhone and iPod touch: All-New Highlights, Expanded Bookmarks

If you haven’t heard, the Bible App™ for iPhone and iPod touch recently got a comprehensive update. Version 3.3 is available immediately in the iTunes App Store. Over the last few days, we’ve been sharing tips with you on how you can take full advantage of many of the Bible App’s new features, including the updated Bible Reader and Sign in, Sign up and Support. Today we’ll introduce highlights for the first time, and we’ll show you your expanded bookmarking options.

All-New Highlights in the Bible App™ 

  • Highlights. Now, if you like, you can bring some of your favorite features from paper Bibles to your personal Bible App account. (Instructions for how to highlight are in the next section below.)
    • New Bible readers. Highlights are a great way you can mark verses you enjoy, or that speak to you in special ways, so you can easily spot them later.
    • Experienced Bible readers. If you’ve been highlighting in your Bible for years, you’ll realize quickly that Bible App highlights work pretty much just as you’d expect.
  • Sync Your Highlights. When you add a highlight in the Bible App on any device, you’ll see your highlight on any YouVersion platform that supports that feature.
Highlighting in the Bible App™To add a highlight: 

  • Tap a verse (or more than one) to select it.
  • Bottom right: Tap the sharing icon that appears.
  • Tap the color you want your highlight to be.
    OR
    Tap the rainbow to select a custom color: 

    • Drag the color picker icon to select your color.
    • Lighter/Darker: Slide the shading bar.
    • Bottom: A sample of your color displays.
    • Tap Choose.

To remove a highlight:

  • Tap the highlighted verse(s) whose highlights you want to remove.
  • Bottom right: Tap the sharing icon that appears.
  • Tap the bright red ‘X’ selection.
Advanced Bookmark Options in the Bible App™
Bookmarks. For the first time in the Bible App, now you can bookmark multiple verses at a time. Here’s how it works: 

  • Tap the verse(s) you want to bookmark.
  • Bottom right: Tap the sharing icon that appears.
  • Tap Bookmark.
  • Optional: If you selected more verses than you intended to bookmark, tap the list and remove the ones you want to.
  • Optional: Select a highlight color.
  • Optional: Name your bookmark with a title.
  • Optional: Add a label(s) to your bookmark to categorize it for faster future reference (like Counseling, Encouragement, Fundamentals, etc.).

Use bookmarks to label verses you want to share with friends, to enhance your own personal studies, or however you want. The possibilities are truly only limited by your imagination and creativity.

At YouVersion, our simple mission is always the same: to make it as easy as possible for people to freely engage with the Bible, no matter where they live. It is this vision that drives the features and functions we add to the Bible App. If you’re not already, we hope you’ll consider using the Bible App to connect to the Bible every day. And if you do: Thanks! Please also share with your friends how fulfilling it can be to engage with God’s Word–anytime, anyplace.

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Updated Bible App for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad: Sign in, Sign up, and Support

After the announcement of the Bible App™ version 3.3 release for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, we promised we’d give you specific tips on how you could get the most out of it. First, we covered Bible Reader updates. Today, we’ll tell you about enhancements to Sign in, Sign up, and integrated Technical Support.

Sign up for the Bible App™ Using Facebook

  • Sign in is cleaner and offers more options, such as signing in with either your email address or username.
  • Sign up now lets you sign up for a free YouVersion account using your Facebook login, saving you time:
    • You won’t have to verify your email address, and
    • Your YouVersion account connects automatically to your Facebook account, making it easy to share the Bible App, verses, or Bible plans with your friends.
 
Access Technical Support from Directly Inside the Bible App™

  • Now you can access Technical Support from directly inside the Bible App. When you email Support from within the Bible App, your request automatically includes information that helps our team quickly troubleshoot your issue.
 
View Tech Support Knowledgebase from Inside the Bible App™Also from directly inside the Bible App, you can:

  • View solutions to Frequently Asked Questions from the YouVersion knowledgebase.
  • Watch video tutorials, and
  • See recent tweets on known issues from @YouVersionHelp, YouVersion’s official support account on Twitter.
 
 

 
Still don’t have your Apple device updated to the latest release of the Bible App? What are you waiting for? You can get it right now in the iTunes App Store. And be sure to come back tomorrow to learn all about the brand-new highlighting features and exciting updates to bookmarks! These much-requested, new and updated features promise to make your experience connecting with the Bible through the Bible App richer than ever before.