This is a great thread with tons of useful information. Frankly it's helped me a lot and inspired me to write a review of my own which I hope can similarly help others and/or save you some time in your choice of your Bible App for your android device. Here's all the apps I tried out and my view of each (based on what is important to me):
Let me start with what is clearly the most popular:
YouVERSION
Pro's:
- The best library of Bibles out there. Simply awesome the amount of choice you have in books. Also the only App on any platform I've ever seen having free access to the NIV version, which happens during promotional periods which thankfully seems to happen fairly regularly (make sure you keep a watch-out for updates on promotions.)
- Easily the best look and feel. The Cadillac of bible apps. Just super silky smooth and a joy to operate. Others beside you in church or bible study will definitely be peeking over your shoulder the moment you power this puppy up
- Download the bibles/books you want and view off-line.
- On-line allows great note-taking as well as seeing what others in youversion community might have said about a particular verse/passage. While on-line you can also perform complex searches
Cons
- YouVersion is optimized for online usage. So although good off-line experience with downloaded books/bibles you can't write notes off-line
- You also can't search if your off-line. Even with your downloaded bibles. Not even simple searches (e.g. one word)!
- No "history" to easily check-out verses that you looked at recently
Summary As everyone has said, great app, absolutely beautiful and on-line most everything you would want. Just not for me as I want the freedom to take good notes and do searches, simple & complex, anytime I like off-line or offline. Also no option for split windows to compare multiple versions and/or commentaries. If you are always online and don't mind simple only online searches and online only note-taking then this app is probably for you.
2nd review is on
CadreBible
Pro's:
- The most feature rich Bible App available at the lowest cost (Free). And completely off-line
- Simply incredible note-taking with the ability to add verses from different passages to the same note and even link multiple notes to one "session" and there's even a search within bookmarks and notes to help you search your own dabblings which could be helpful after you make many entries
- Bookmarking, highlighting and even underlining all possible. Bookmarking can be organized by folders with automatic highlighting in your chosen color to denote which category of bookmark the verse falls into. This is actually the easier way to highlight verses as trying to do it manually is painful (see con’s below)
- Complex searches are a breeze. Look for two words in a passage that are not next to each other and it will pick up all relevant passages easily. No special syntax needed
- Parallel view feature is great. One click and every version and commentary you have for the relevant verse will be shown on one screen to help you study and see what different versions and how even different languages communicate the verse, while of course checking out the commentaries on that verse as well
- Customizable "history" feature which defaults from the last 20 views to as long back as you like. Never lose the ability to find a passage you looked at in the past
Cons
- Easily the most clunky app out there. Just doesn't operate all that smoothly but maybe a benefit is you wont be distracting your neighbors in the aisle with the lovely interface. Although offers the ability to highlight and underline, it's a nightmare to actually try and do it (at least on my device) especially compared to the easy one-tap highlighting offered in YouVersion. As for the look, once you optimize the font size, it does end up looking ok. Reading operation is good with swipe left and right for next/last chapter which surprisingly several bible apps can't do (including YouVersion)
- Access to Free Bible translations is relatively limited compared to YouVersion. Same comment for commentaries. Paid for Bible list is quite comprehensive, but commentaries extremely limited whether it be paid or free which is really unfortunate (but finding good commentaries is difficult on all apps). Bibles in several languages are available, many of which are for free. Due to the lack of free bible translations that work for me (even frequently found great free translation ESV is not available) I ended up purchasing the “Net Premier Bible w Notes”, which is a very nice version with excellent translation notes throughout the whole bible based on the original greek/Hebrew which can conveniently one-tap expanded/collapsed as you read through the text
Summary After reviewing everything I could out there, this is my Bible app of choice. It's definitely enhanced my devotional time as I can easily capture notes anytime, bookmark, search, cross-reference etc. Also I'm so much more organized and effective as I prepare for Bible study and can easily click through my notes which are all linked to the relevant verses that I know we are going to go through in our group discussion. Unfortunate about the clunky interface as this engine with Youversion look and feel would be the granddaddy of em all.
Quick summary’s for all others
Starting with
Bible-Discovery
Billed as a feature-rich program, this Bible App came up a little short. In summary, it can, in theory, do all the things Cadre Bible can do, but you need to get the premium version for it to work. For example you can perform simple offline searches, but try a complex search of two words and you get a prompt to buy the premium version. Also navigation of the myriad of tools is a nightmare as everything is icon based and not possible to differentiate between icon for bookmark, note, search, highlight, switch book, settings, etc etc etc. So maybe if you take the time to learn all the icons and you buy the full version and books you need then this might be the app for you.
Next is
Bible.is. This app crashed upon installation, so unfortunately I couldn’t get running. It’s the only Bible App that this happened so a little surprising.
An odd one out is
Pocket Bible which was THE app back in the day when Windows was actually a serious player in the mobile marketplace. Now they have a alpha version which I wouldn’t recommend trying since this is not even at Beta stage. I only bring it up since it is bound to be feature-rich and off-line. Also to date they still have access to the best commentary out there which is called “Life Application Study Bible Notes”. It’s a pay for book, but it’s the only commentary I know of which is truly application based… in other words, it’s trying to help you find an application for your daily life, not just trying to explain the Greek or go into some deep theological discussion which has no practicality in your job or school etc. Watch this space cause once Laridian get’s their act together Pocket Bible might be a decent contender.
I was really tempted by the features advertised by
Tecarta but after looking into it, it seemed it only included the KJV in the free downloadable app and everything had to be downloaded separately and paid for separately through the android market, so I gave it a miss on that basis.
And Bible is a nice solution, sort of the blend between CadreBible and YouVersion that could have been the knock-out punch. Pretty interface and also includes ESV as one of the free version, which if using the NIV as a benchmark is a very nice translation. A plethora of Bible choices and the most commentaries available vs any other I have seen. It’s great cause it’s completely off-line with the same silky-smooth feeling of YouVersion, but it falls a tini-wini bit short on the features dept. Searching is a big plus as it can be done off-line after creating or downloading the search index. It’s got a very user-friendly search kit to do searches on any word, all words or phrase (simple and or complex searches). Bookmarking is quick and easy with a simple tap-hold on the verse, but there is no denotation or highlighting in the text that there is an existing bookmark there (which later when going through is a nice indication to remind you that at some point in the past you found that passage important). Sadly no highlighting and although say’s it has the ability for note-taking I couldn’t find it (maybe I had an older version). Also no option for split-screen to simultaneously view a passage and another translation or commentary. So this one really was a close runner up, but ultimately fell a tad short on the features, but probably something that could be easily fixed in coming versions. I hope so given how fluid and elegant the interface is!
There were others that I tried out and tested but ultimately made less of an impression on me or were not as often mentioned as the ones above in previous comments so I didn’t bother to mention them here. Hope you find this quick summary/review helpful. Blessings!!
