Category: News

We’ve seen amazing success for the Bible on Android powered mobile phones since we launched the first version less than 9 months ago. People have been able to read the Bible in more than 40 translations and 22 languages since the beginning. Sharing Bible verses with friends, accessing more than 20 Bible reading plans, and a uniquely Android experience have made the YouVersion app the most popular Bible app in the Android Market (and every other mobile app marketplace, too).

That’s why we believe that the addition of YouVersion Live to the Android platform is a significant milestone. YouVersion Live is a unique feature that brings amazing value to the user as well as tens of thousands of churches, Bible studies, and conferences around the world. Download the latest version of the YouVersion Android Bible app now in the Android Market.

For Android Users

Having YouVersion Live on your Android phone will give you the ability to closely follow and interact with the content of any live event that is implementing YouVersion Live into their programming. With the opportunity to quickly share your experience with friends, take notes right inside the app, interact with those leading the event through answering questions and asking for prayer, and the ability to interact with other attendees through polls, YouVersion Live could change the way you experience church, Bible studies, conferences, and more.

So, before you attend another live event, make sure they’re running YouVersion Live so can take full advantage of everything YouVersion and the event has to offer.

For Event Coordinators

With the growth of Android as a platform, the sheer number of people with the YouVersion app installed on their Android phones, and the rumors of tablets and “other” devices in the near future to be running Android, the potential for reaching your audience with a unique, memorable, and engaging experience just got an adrenaline shot. Whether you coordinate regular ol’ church services, Bible studies, or large conferences, YouVersion Live on Android (and iPhone & Blackberry) makes it easier than ever to capture the attention and imagination of anyone in the room (and potentially thousands more through the option to share your event via Twitter, Facebook, email, SMS, and more).

Before you plan your next event, think about the almost 6 million people with YouVersion already installed on their mobile phones and make sure you leverage that opportunity to create an experience they’ll never forget.

Download the YouVersion Android app at http://youversion.com/download or visit http://youversion.com/mobile to see all of our mobile Bible offerings. Visit http://youversion.com/about/live to read more about YouVersion Live. And don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS or follow us on Twitter and Facebook to stay up-to-date on future announcements.

We rolled out an update to YouVersion.com yesterday that includes a couple changes to make your user experience even better.

Tweaks to Connections

We changed how the Connections work to improve the speed and reliability. Each time you share a Bible verse, a reading plan, or anything else on the site, you’ll find it gets where it’s going quickly. The changes also ensure that your update will be sent to its destination regardless of the state of the destination. That means that you’ll be able to send an update to Twitter when Twitter is offline (in case the Fail Whale decides to make an appearance) and it will be posted as soon as Twitter comes online again.

New Settings Admin

We re-created the Settings area to make room for some cool stuff coming down the pipeline. The immediate changes you’ll notice are the navigation structure and organization of your account information, making it easier to manage your personal info, your password, connections, notifications, etc.

We hope you like these little tweaks and continue to enjoy reading the Bible online or on your mobile device through YouVersion.

On April 3rd Apple released the revolutionary iPad…and today Apple released the newest iPad model with 3g. Just in time for the iPad 3g, we are happy to announce the YouVersion Bible HD 1.1 app.

New Bible HD 1.1 features:
– Login/Sync to YouVersion.com account
– Access to over 20 Reading Plans
– Twitter integration
– bug fixes

Download Bible HD from iTunes

Since we launched them in mid-December, the YouVersion Reading Plans have been a huge hit! We’ve seen almost 350,000 people subscribe to one of the 22 reading plans that are available, and users are continuing to sign up at an increasing rate. Many of you have let us know that the plans help you read the Bible more consistently–way to go!

Recently, we revisited the reading plans to make sure they’re as useful and helpful as possible. After more than 100 days of regularly reading the Bible, many users were asking for a couple of features:

1. You wanted a way to quickly go back to past days you’ve missed or even skip ahead to future readings.
2. You wanted to get a feel for your progress in a more tangible way.

In response to those requests, we decided to create one feature that solves both problems. It’s called the Reading Plan Calendar and it makes it even easier to get a bird’s eye view of the reading plans you’re following.

From the Calendar you’ll be able to see the full scope of your plan in calendar format, see which days are complete or incomplete in the past, and see how many days are left in the future. Clicking any day will take you to the reading selections for that day.

We hope you enjoy this addition to the YouVersion Reading Plans because we plan to roll this feature out to all of our current and upcoming mobile Bible apps very soon. To see the Reading Plan Calendar in action, just sign in and go to the overview for any reading plan that you’re following. You’ll see a message at the top of the page if there are any incomplete days in the past. Otherwise, click the button in the right sidebar that says “Plan Calendar.”

Have fun managing your Bible reading with this new tool!

Behind the scenes, our team has invested months of work and hundreds of hours of testing to make YouVersion even better for you! This major update includes two major changes and one significant addition.

Major Performance Enhancements

We painstakingly went through every line of code to make YouVersion.com faster and more reliable than it’s ever been. Over the next several weeks, YouVersion.com will continue to get faster for all of our users. We’ll be rolling out similar performance enhancements to all of YouVersion’s mobile Bible apps soon.

What it means for you:
A faster experience on the YouVersion.com website, and upcoming improvements to all of our mobile apps. Reading and navigating through the Bible in the palm of your hand will be snappier than ever!

Significantly Improved Search

Searching the Bible for topics, specific Bible references, and keywords or phrases just got a lot easier, more intelligent, and faster with:

• – the ability to use search formulas to hone your searches (e.g. “he first loved us” or Jesus AND Peter)
• – smart search suggestions to help you find exactly what you’re looking for (e.g. Did you mean “only begotten son”?)
• – a Bible translation picker to quickly perform the same search in different Bible translations
• – plenty of back-end architecture that will make your search results appear super fast

Of course, improved search also works when searching YouVersion contributions, users, and tags.

What it means for you:
Easier, faster and more natural searches. We’ve played with the new search setup internally and we really think you’ll like the changes!

Introduction of 3rd Party Connections

We’re incredibly excited to be rolling out this new feature—so excited, in fact, that Terry and Jon couldn’t wait to give you a sneak preview last week! We’re starting with Facebook and Twitter, but we have plans for more integration with 3rd party services in the future.

What it means for you:
Connect your YouVersion account to your Facebook or Twitter account once and share the Bible, your reading plans, or other thoughts with your friends, quickly and seamlessly. And, because these “Connections” are tied to your YouVersion account, we’ll be able to roll out updates to the YouVersion mobile apps that take full advantage of each integration.

Our team has been working hard on these changes and we think you’ll love the end result. And, since it’s easy to share the things you love with your friends, take the chance to tell someone about YouVersion today! Tweet it, post it to Facebook, blog about it, or show someone how to read the Bible for free on their mobile phone by helping them download a YouVersion mobile app at http://youversion.com/download.

For specific details regarding the changes made in this update, see the YouVersion release notes.

Connect with us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/youversion.
Join the conversation on Facebook at http://facebook.com/youversion.
Get help with YouVersion at http://youversion.com/support.