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Soon from YouVersion: All New Bible App for iPhone!

For almost three years now, our dedicated iOS YouVersion community (iPhone, iPod touch, and more recently, iPad) has been engaging with and sharing God’s Word through their Apple devices. And during that time, regular app updates have debuted new languages and features like social connections, offline versions, notes, and of course reading plans. Today we’re thrilled to share the dawn of the all-new, next generation of the Bible App­™ for iOS: VERSION 3.0.
V. 3.0 of the Bible App™ for iOS is almost here!
This complete overhaul makes connecting with the Bible simpler and more flexible than ever before. You can find a complete feature list at the end of this post, but here are just a few highlights (click the images to enlarge):

  • Audio Bibles. From the main Bible Reader, you’ll be able to have the Bible read to you (a full list of the audio versions available at launch is below). Although not in this release, audio Bibles will even be coming soon to the reader in your Reading Plan!
  • Easier Reading. With the words of Christ in red (in participating versions) and adjustable brightness, contrast, and fonts, you’ll be able to read clearly in any light, making your text the size and look that’s most comfortable for your eyes.
  • Dashboard Launcher. You’ll be able to directly access the most commonly used features from the newly designed welcome screen. (Many of these features will just be one click away on most other screens too.)
  • Recent Activity. A quick chronological list helps you see everything you’ve done while you’ve been using the Bible App, with each item just one tap away from jumping right back to it.

 

As soon as Version 3.0 hits the iTunes App Store, you can be sure we’ll announce it here and on Facebook and Twitter. But even more great tools are on the horizon. Besides everything you see here, still to come in a future release…

  • Audio for reading plans
  • Improved Bookmarks with addition of Highlighting
  • All-new, easier navigation for books, chapters and verses

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Brand New at YouVersion.com: Korean and Russian!

Selecting a Language at YouVersion.comYouVersion.com just added Korean and Russian as interface options, once again all thanks to YouVersion’s amazing, dedicated volunteer community. To switch to one of these languages, click in the lower left corner of the reader, or go directly to http://ko.youversion.com/ for Korean or http://ru.youversion.com/ for Russian.

The ability to choose your interface in Korean or Russian means you can enjoy your entire connection with the Bible in the language of your choice, whether you’re on the website or using the Bible App™ on your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch, Android, or BlackBerry device (referenced here and here). If you’d like to read the Bible in Korean, you can choose from the Korean Living Bible (KLB) and the 개역한글 (KORVB). For Russian, you can read in the Русский Синодальный перевод (RURSV). And of course we’re constantly working to bring you more versions in other languages.

Do you know anyone who might enjoy engaging with God’s Word in Korean or Russian? Please let them know about these exciting new options, and spread the word on Facebook and Twitter. If you’d like to help out as a volunteer translator, please let us know through volunteer sign up what you can do. Participating in the global YouVersion volunteer community offers truly unique opportunities for you to share your faith—with literally millions of people all over the world.

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The Bible App for Android: 5 Million Devices

When the YouVersion user community reaches huge milestones, we love to share them so we can celebrate together. As of today:

The Bible App™ for Android has been
installed on more than 5 million devices!

The Bible App™ for Android at 5 Million DownloadsWhat that means is that more people are now engaging with God’s Word through the Bible App—just on Android devices—than were even using the Bible App on every platform at this same time last year. And of course, they’re participating with the millions of others also using the Bible App on iPhone/iPad/iPod touch, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and other platforms. In fact, the YouVersion community has been connecting with the Bible through the Bible App collectively for more than 6 billion minutes!

Launched in August of 2009, the Bible App for Android has continued adding and improving features, like offline Bibles, a reading plan widget, and most recently, even audio Bibles. And of course all of these cutting edge tools are in addition to the multiple languages and same great features on our other platforms: reading plans, notes, bookmarks, social connections and more.

Hopefully you know by now that at YouVersion, we love the Bible. So it’s thrilling when Bible App users continue to share with others how they too can easily, freely connect with it every day on their mobile devices. Please keep telling friends and loved ones about the Bible App for Android, available free from the Android App Market. And let’s connect on Facebook and Twitter!

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4 New Translations from YouVersion and the Bible App: SFB, SSV, ZIV and CCB

Through partnerships with Bible organizations literally around the world, we’re very excited to be announcing four new translations of the Bible today, available immediately at YouVersion.com and in the Bible App™:
The Bible App™ Icon (with map)

  • SFB Svenska Folkbibeln. The SFB, a widely read and loved version of the Scriptures in Swedish, represents our second translation available in this language. (We also offer the SVEN Svenska 1917.)
  • SSV Sväté Písmo (katolícky preklad). A Catholic version of the Bible, the SSV is our first available translation in the Slovak language.
  • ZIV Zokam International Version. The ZIV is our first version of the Bible translated into the Zokam language, envisioned for Zo People in India, Burma, Southeast Asia and across the world. You can learn more about the ZIV at their website.
  • CCB 当代译本. A brand new translation of Scriptures in Chinese provided by Biblica, the CCB, or Chinese Contemporary Bible, makes the Bible available in Standard Mandarin, or Putonghua, a modern, easily understood Chinese language spoken by more than 870 million people. You can read all about the CCB at Biblica’s website.

With this announcement, the Bible App and YouVersion now offer 54 translations in 23 languages. If you have friends who might benefit from any of these versions of the Bible, please let them know, whether in person or on Facebook and Twitter. The Bible App is a completely free application, available on all of the following platforms:

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YouVersion’s Terrific Volunteers: Could You Be One?

The Bible App™ IconDuring the first 46 days of 2011, together the YouVersion community engaged with the Bible for more than 1 billion minutes. And during just the past 60 days, the Bible App™ was installed on 3.4 million new mobile devices. So far, the Bible App’s interface is available in 11 languages, with even more to come. More people than ever now have the opportunity to experience God’s Word in a personal, meaningful way. All of those things happened in partnership with dedicated volunteers passionately offering their gifts—volunteers just like you.

Volunteers with YouVersion have the opportunity to touch the lives of literally millions of people all over the world—volunteers like Klaus in Germany, Kleber translating Portuguese in Brazil, Sebastian in Poland, Yanick working on Dutch from the Netherlands, Jose in Guatemala contributing Spanish, Ingu helping with Korean from the U.S., Isaac and Jerry translating into Chinese, Roman and Vitaliy in Russia, and Ramelle in France. But even as great as these tireless leaders are, if you can assist with translation into any of these languages, they would be grateful to have your help.

But of course YouVersion isn’t stopping there. We’re also seeking volunteer translators for Japanese, Arabic, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Afrikaans, Swedish, Slovak, Romanian and Czech. And if there’s another language you’d like to see the Bible App in, and you can help translate it, please contact us.

There are other ways you can help, too. Can you translate? Provide support to other users? Design or develop websites or mobile apps? Test new versions and provide great feedback? Please let us know if any of these tasks sound like you.

We would be honored to welcome you to the YouVersion team.