Category: Releases

The most recent update to the YouVersion iPhone app is now available in iTunes! We’re excited to tell you about what’s included with this release:

Enhanced Bible Reading Features (by popular demand!)

• ~ Landscape mode in main Bible reader: To read the Bible in landscape mode, tilt your iPhone or iPod Touch to the left 90’. You’ll be able to read the Bible in full, wide screen style while still having the ability to interact with Bible verses and move to the next or previous chapter.
• ~ Full Bible interaction in reading plan reader: Now you can interact with Bible verses from within the reading plan reader. While you’re completing your daily Bible reading, you’ll be able to share a verse with a friend through email or Twitter, view contributions from other YouVersion users, or bookmark a verse for later reference.

Bug Fixes

• ~ Losing offline data: Some users were experiencing a loss of offline Bible versions and/or bookmarks intermittently. This should no longer happen.
• ~ Poor handling of connection loss: In previous versions, losing your data connection would cause an infinite loading spinner or an app crash. Connection loss is handled more gracefully now.
• ~ Incomplete reading plan selections: After changing the start/end dates for a reading plan, some users reported not seeing that change fully take place within the YouVersion iPhone app. That bug is squashed and all changes made on www.youversion.com to a reading plan should be seen within the app.
• ~ iPod Touch problems: iPod Touch users were experiencing odd activity when outside the range of wifi including the inability to open the app or the loss of offline Bible versions. Those issues have been addressed.
• ~ Dock icons reset in “Airplane Mode”: Some users reported losing the custom order of icons in the dock within the YouVersion iPhone app when opening the app in “Airplane Mode”. We fixed this too.

The YouVersion app for iPhone and iPod touch has experienced amazing growth in the past 6-8 months. With more than 2 million YouVersion users on Apple’s mobile platform alone, the iPhone and iPod touch have become remarkable tools for people around the world to engage with God’s Word wherever they are.

We hope you love the latest feature additions and bug fixes included in this update. If you have any feedback, questions, feature requests, or encouragement please let us know at http://youversion.com/support. You can also join the conversation on Twitter (http://twitter.com/youversion) or Facebook (http://facebook.com/youversion).

And for all the iPad fans, we’re working hard on bringing an amazing Bible reading experience to that device and we’re looking forward to unveiling it soon.

The new YouVersion Bible app for Palm’s WebOS platform was approved and released in Palm’s App Catalog early last week. We’re excited for this release and have big plans for future development on the WebOS platform. You can download the app now from Palm’s website (http://goo.gl/hcbO) or search for “youversion” in the App Catalog on your Palm Pre or Pixi.

This release represents our first effort at providing a robust YouVersion Bible application for Palm’s budding platform and should be considered a “beta” release for two reasons.

Functionality is limited to what is possible on our mobile website. This beta release is a simple embedded browser that makes accessing our mobile website (http://m.youversion.com) quick and easy.
We have big plans for future iterations of this application to bring it from “beta” stage to a full-featured native YouVersion Bible app.

We love our Palm users…you’re some of the most vocal and passionate users we have and we’re aware of your deep desire to see YouVersion be amazing on WebOS phones. We share in that desire, and are excited to see the webOS platform grow and expand so we can expand our development efforts. Look for more webOS updates throughout the year.

We’re launching a new Bible application today that’s compatible with most Java-enabled phones and it’s available for download now. This app will give you access to the entire Bible (41 translations in 22 languages) on any phone that can run Java apps with a screen resolution of 240×320 or 320×240.

This release is significant for many reasons, but the most important reason is that the Java Bible app will be targeting hundreds of millions of people around the world that live in less developed countries and don’t have good mobile data connections or powerful smartphones. This includes India, China, Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. We’re most excited about the possibility of giving away millions of free Bibles in places where the Bible isn’t readily available.

Why is this app different?

Since most people associate mobile applications with smartphones like the iPhone, we thought it would help if we explained why this app is different.

Because of the basic nature of Java phones and the limited availability of mobile data connections, we’ve intentionally kept the Java Bible app simple. To accommodate as many phones as possible, we built two versions: (1) a “bundled” version that includes the ASV Bible and doesn’t need a data connection to read the Bible and (2) a “lite” version that necessitates a data connection to read the Bible.

Both the “bundled” and the “lite” versions can be downloaded directly to your computer and then transferred to your Java phone manually to allow people with zero mobile data connection the chance to have the Bible on their phone. But, of course, if you do have a data connection you will still be able to download the app from bible.com/app just like all of our other Bible apps.

What is a “Java-enabled phone”?

Java (J2ME or Java ME) is the most ubiquitous application platform for mobile devices. Motorola, Samsung, HTC, Sony, Nokia, and others offer handsets that run Java applications. For example, if you have a Motorola Razor or a Nokia E63 (two of the most popular phones in the world), you can run Java apps. Even Windows Mobile devices can use this app.

How to Download

The easiest way to download the YouVersion Bible app for Java is to visit bible.com/app from your Java-enabled mobile phone. From there you’ll be taken to the Java application store where you’ll be able to download the right version for your phone.

If you’d rather download the app to your computer and transfer it manually, go to http://www.getjar.com/mobile/29005/bible-from-youversion to grab it now.