1) Why Logos and 2) Why Logos over Accordance

Hello friends
It is an exciting time to be a student of the Bible who is also a Mac user! As you probably know, Accordance version 9 has just been released, and Logos 4 for Mac is just around the corner.
I would like to solicit your help. I am a writer for The Unofficial Apple Weblog, and reviewed Logos 3 about a year ago (link) and have also used & reviewed Accordance, including the new version 9 release. I'm also a full-time ordained minister currently working on finishing my D.Min. at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
I hope to be able to provide a review of Logos 4 for Mac which goes beyond the marketing copy of listing which new features are available to give Mac users a sense of why Logos users have chosen it (first question) and specific reasons why they chose it over Accordance.
For example: I would *assume* that the existence of a Windows and Mac version means that pastors who have a Mac at home and a WIndows computer at the church would be happy to find they could use the same program on both. But are any of you using Logos for that reason?
Although both Logos and Accordance have a dizzying number resources available, it appears that Logos has a greater number of them available. That said, Mac users are used to Windows users saying that Windows is better because it has "more software available" and Mac users generally respond by saying "Yeah, but Mac has *better* software available." My assumption is that it's not just a matter of "more = better" but "Here are some resources that were important to me that were available on Logos but not Accordance."
So there are a few of my assumptions, but you know the old saying "When you assume, you are likely to make mistakes." (I may not have that 100% accurate, but you get the idea.)
I'd like to hear what features of Logos (esp. v.4) make you happy that you chose Logos. What do you like more than v.3? Was there one feature in particular that made you say "I'm definitely upgrading to get _this feature_"?
In my research thus far, the only negative that I have seen about Logos 4 has been the speed/CPU requirements, where even Logos says in their FAQ that you'll want a fairly new computer to get the best performance. Again, my *assumption* is that given how long most churches hang onto computers (at the first church I served {in 1998} I was presented with a 486 running Windows 3.1, and the secretary was using a 386 and DOS), this could be a problem for some pastors. Is Logos 4 running acceptably on your computer, or are you frustrated by the speed (for either situation, I'd be interested to know how old your computer is and any other relevant specs)? Are there other issues new users should be aware of?
Personally I like both Logos and Accordance quite a bit. I found that I, personally, have tended to use Accordance more often, but taking a close look at Logos 4, and so far have found several parts that I like over v3. But I believe that you all can probably illuminate me to things that I might not notice even if I used Logos exclusively for a long time, because you are more familiar with the program than I am.
ps - I know that people are naturally suspicious of lots of things (and perhaps some especially of "bloggers"), so please let me make it clear that I have no financial stake in people using either Logos or Accordance. I have invested my own money in owning the latest copies of both programs on the Mac, and largely consider them to be like Nikon and Canon, each one having different features that make their users love them, and (hopefully) the existence of a competitor makes each one stronger.
ps2 - I'm signed up to get email replies to this thread, but if you'd like to contact me directly, you can email me at GMail (same username as this forum).
Comments
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I had the same question nearly a year ago - go for the supposed 'Rolls Royce" Accordance or the relative Mac 'newcomer', Logos.
Primarily, these factors swayed me for Logos. I am a layman, and therefore required a value for money product that addressed my personal market segment, so to speak. That is, I don't want to get bogged down my the detailed minutiae of studying Greek and Hebrew (that appears to be the target market for Accordance). That may be just what is required by many people, but not me. I wanted something that would give me the bigger picture, if you will - and Logos, in my opinion does just that at a reasonable price point.
Also with Accordance; if you want graphics resources, you have to pay extra for it big time. Plus, if I specifically wanted my chosen Bible - the ESV - I had to pay extra over that of the 'Introductory' version of Accordance.
What is more, Logos appears ahead of the game in providing apps for the iPod Touch and iPad.
Overall, the price paid for the comprehensively specced, and dual-platform, Logos is better value for money
My Mac can go all the way to OS XI
www.bournvillechurch.co.uk
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Well, your query can be a little dangerous, since it's easy to be wrong about software capabilities. Often what doesn't seem to be available can be achieved in other ways. But for me, Logos was the only 'game in town' for a hebrew interlinear that included morph-tags on displayed lines. Most use a mouse-over or alternatively paralleling two separate resources or text blocks. I wanted to be able to see whole sections of morph-tags at a time, with or without the hebrew. And to date, I still think Logos is the only one. Plus, since I purchased, the expansion to syntax and now high-definition schemes is even more useful.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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As one of the developers of Logos 4 Mac, I'm going to stay out of the "Accordance vs. Logos" debate. Because you're a journalist, I figured a technical correction would be appreciated. Strictly speaking, there was no product called "Logos 3" available for the Mac. The previous version available on the Mac was Libronix 1.x, the most recent version being Libronix 1.2.2.
It's also fair to point out that while a "one or the other" choice may be made for some, more than a few people use both products.
Also, on the outside chance that you haven't seen them, there are a fairly large number of videos that describe the functionality of Logos 4: http://www.logos.com/videos
Director of Engineering for Enterprise and Operations
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Hi there
I am not an Accordance user and have not tried it, so can't and won't comment on it. Focusing on Logos 4 for Mac, I would say that definitely first of all one would have to consider the total platform, a major part of which is the breadth and depth of resources (books) available, now and in the future. Given that a purchaser is buying into a (obviously necessarily) commercially restrictive license (i.e. Logos are not going to allow their resources to be opened in Accordance, and vice versa) people have to be comfortable that they are 'buying into' a long term viable platform. I think it would be fair to say that Logos has a mainstream evangelical position in terms of book titles (no problems from me on that) but they also provide for broader audiences. Plus I think they have some innovative programs to help to get as many titles into electronic form as quickly as possible, including releasing titles based on specific interests of existing customers.
One example, I got the 'Catena Aurea' by Thomas Aquinas (http://www.logos.com/products/prepub/details/5216) 8 volumes through the Logos 'Pre-Pub' program for $14! (I got in very early). So I not only get a difficult to obtain title for a great price, but I get it in electronic format indexed and searchable ready to be able to add depth to studying the gospels.
In terms of the software, for Logos 4 they took the (brave) step to get versions on the two major platforms, Mac & Windows, so that people could, potentially, maximise their investment in the platform (books) by being able to use either OS, and keeping the software user interface fairly consistent. They traditionally have developed for Windows, and they had to make some choices to get a 'native' Mac application built on top of the book 'engine' but they have done it, and it is shipping and it will only improve over time. The team have worked hard to get Logos 4 for Mac released, and now they have achieved that milestone I am sure they will be continuing to polish it.
My use is not as an original languages expert, my interest is in being able to dig into and understand the message in each of the books of the Bible as if each was being written directly to me in colloquial language (as they were to original audiences). Does (the new version of) Logos 4 help me achieve that goal? Well obviously given that the information is in the books, the question then is how well does Logos 4 allow a user to a) get at them = UI design and features, without b) getting in the way = functionality and performance. For me I think the interface does a pretty good job - you can follow a train of thought and 'dig into' information (for example any Bible passage right click on a word) and get educated and then find gems leading you into new directions. I just wish I had more time to dig for treasures.
Performance wise, yep you won't run it on your '486 [:)], but on most reasonably new Macs it runs fine (and again it will continue to improve as they fine tune it). I have a (not-new) Mac Pro and it runs fine. I also have a much less powered MacBook 13" I take to Bible study (no-one complains about having a fully indexed 600 book library available!) and it runs acceptably on that. Sure, if anyone does an Exegetical Guide on a whole chapter of the Bible then it is going to grind away, but that obviously is not a practical thing to do if one understands what the software has to do to do exegesis on hundreds of words at once.
In summary - would anyone regret the investment in Logos 4 for Mac? I don't think so.
"I want to know all God's thoughts; the rest are just details." - Albert Einstein
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I started with Logos on Windows when I was working on my B.A. in Theology, and now have completed an MDiv, I have so many resources in Logos that switching to Accordance now that I am using the Mac would not really be an option. Also the program works really great.
Some of the new features would have been so helpful when I was in school. One is Clippings, which allow a way to take snippets of things like an index card. Also the way that Favorites now works is really great. I was even able to take on a the reading lists and favorite that specific one. The redesign of all of the guides and documents are much improved.
I know that Accordance is out there, but many of the resources I want to get are not available, and as far as I can tell with Accordance it does not give the page numbers of the print editions. I know when I had to write papers if the majority of my work was strictly electronic editions without page numbers it was a problem. But with Logos I had the best of both worlds, a digital copy, but I could include the page numbers for my professors (hey some them have a love/hate relationship with computers). Also if I had the money to invest in Accordance, I would use the money to get more books in Logos instead.
I think Accordance might have been an option when there was not Mac version of Logos, but now that Logos 4 is on the Mac I have to stay with them.
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Cameron
I respect that position. It would be helpful to me to be able to talk with someone @ Logos to make sure that my article/review is accurate. Much better than having to post corrections afterwards.
If you'd be willing to be that person, please get in touch via email (luomat at gmail).
Thanks.
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I'd be happy to be your point of contact for any fact-checking you want/need to do. I believe you already have my e-mail address from our earlier Twitter exchange.
David Mitchell
Development Lead
Faithlife0 -
Ah, yes, indeed I do. In fact I've got a draft of my reply that I was working on earlier to address some of the things we were talking about. Will try to send that off tonight.
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Doing a good comparison is gong to take time. You'll want to come up with a realistic set of use cases and try them on both. You'll also want to compare the resources available. My sense is that Logos has more resources, and a more flexible UI. It also feels heavier. I have both. I normally use Logos on my primary machine and Accordance on my laptop (because I don't know of any way to tell Logos just to download a few resources, and I have enough stuff that I don't want it all on my laptop).
Neither is wonderful in helping you manage a large collection of resources. I have Logos configured to make it easy to use the things I use often, but it took some doing.
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I have (and use) both Accordance and Logos (Running it on Mac now, although I've also run it on Windows). They are both fine platforms and whichever one that is chosen, it will enhance biblical studies immeasurably. If I had to choose one over the other I would choose Logos mainly because Logos has many more resources available and is generally (but not always) cheaper. In addition, Logos is coming out with some really unique resources that aren't available anywhere else (even in print). I'm thinking particularly of the work Steve Runge has done on the High Definition New Testament and the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament, and the High Definition commentaries starting to come out. These are unavailable anywhere else and (I think) invaluable for biblical study. Accordance wins with it's notes system over Logos. Logos wins with cataloguing research data with it's "Clippings" function. The biblical people, places, things reports in Logos 4 are unique and invaluable as well. Going back to Logos 3, the automated reports (which have been enhanced in L4) are a brilliant approach allowing someone with almost zero understanding of the software to get deeply into research knowing only that they have to type a reference or word into the box on the home page. For someone starting out that is an incredible advantage of Logos. Finally, while both companies have excellent software forums, because Logos has such a huge user base one can post a question on the forum any time day or night and get an answer usually in a matter of minutes. This has been very helpful to me, multiple times. Again, they are both fantastic products and no matter which one someone chooses they will be stunned at the power unleashed in biblical studies.
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Logos is indeed cheaper than Accordance. However, the clincher for me was the constant crashing. I owned Logos 4 for two weeks in early September and was never able to use it. Every update left me nothing but an unexpected error after 1 minute of run time. In addition, when I opened the program my 4 gigs of RAM whirred like they were attempting to rocket my computer to Mars.
Accordance supplied me with a stable program that didn't eat all of my computer's RAM. And, after fiddling around with my friends PC version of Logos 4, I found that the Accordance search functions are much more intuitive.
With that said, Logos definitely has a finer sheen as well as better products for those not in the market for an original language study. But, for my money and mental stability, Accordance was the better choice.
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Cameron Watters said:
It's also fair to point out that while a "one or the other" choice may be made for some, more than a few people use both products.
I use both as each has its own strengths. If I could only own one, now that Logos 4 is native to Mac, Logos would have the slight edge simply because I can get resources I need on the Logos platform that I can't on the Accordance. This of course, displays one of my priorities. For others, their priorities might be different.
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Derek L Davis said:
I owned Logos 4 for two weeks in early September and was never able to use it.
It's a shame you had some difficulties, I think though that some points should be clarified for the sake of correctness as I believe your experience was not the norm. If you were trying Logos 4 for Mac in September then you were using the beta, or maybe even the alpha — it wasn't released. It was made pretty clear to everyone that they were on the 'bleeding edge'. As this was your first posting on the forums it could be deduced that you had not asked the community about your difficulties using the alpha/beta version?
Derek L Davis said:However, the clincher for me was the constant crashing. Every update left me nothing but an unexpected error after 1 minute of run time.
On the stability side well I installed (upgraded) multiple versions of L4M during alpha, and more increasingly as it got to beta. I never encounted constant crashing, I believe (from reading the forum each day) that the majority of alpha/beta users had the same experience. Sure some issues, more usually finding features not [yet] working, but not constant crashing.
Derek L Davis said:In addition, when I opened the program my 4 gigs of RAM whirred like they were attempting to rocket my computer to Mars.
Well that could have simply been L4M doing what it had to do — its initial indexing of books. It was designed to use as much horsepower as possible to get the one time big task of indexing finished. I was happy to see it use all four cores of my machine to finish the job as quickly as possible, I'd go to bed and leave it to it. Sounds like perhaps your installation never got a chance to properly finish. On my machine now with Logos gold running, but not active, it takes less than 1% of CPU resources and 264MB of RAM
Anyway good that you have found a tool which helps with your study, I felt though that some clarification on your comments was warranted.
BTW — I have no vested interest in Logos, just a user.
"I want to know all God's thoughts; the rest are just details." - Albert Einstein
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John Murphy said:
Finally, while both companies have excellent software forums, because Logos has such a huge user base one can post a question on the forum any time day or night and get an answer usually in a matter of minutes.
Observation: Accordance forums have 19,654 total posts compared to 174,313 Logos forum posts.
Also, Logos has Wiki http://wiki.logos.com/Logos_Bible_Software_Wiki that contains an impressive amount of user contributed information and usage tips, often with illustrations.
Package comparison, Logos web page => http://www.logos.com/comparison shows which resource(s) are in 9 packages. Accordance has a product library comparison page with 3 out of 7 bundles (mega bundle page has links to included bundles with links to ...).
Logos Scholar's Gold, Platinum, and Portfolio packages include United Bible Societies Translator's Handbook Series (cross-cultural insights);
http://www.logos.com/products/details/1904
http://www.logos.com/products/details/1782
Logos has 15 hours of "Learn to Use Biblical Greek and Hebrew with Logos Bible Software 4" videos => http://www.logos.com/products/details/5876
Keep Smiling [:)]
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Patrick S. said:Derek L Davis said:
I owned Logos 4 for two weeks in early September and was never able to use it.
It's a shame you had some difficulties, I think though that some points should be clarified for the sake of correctness as I believe your experience was not the norm. If you were trying Logos 4 for Mac in September then you were using the beta, or maybe even the alpha -
Wiki page has Logos 4 Mac Release Notes and History => http://wiki.logos.com/Mac_Release_Notes_and_History
By way of comparison, Logos for Mac 1.2.2 took much less time to initially scan resources to build library and open for use while searches took longer to complete. After downloading resources, Logos 4 library indexing can take several hours (depends on size of library and speed of computer). Also, Logos 4 syncs lots of information - quite useful for multiple Logos 4 installations (PC & MAC) or installing Logos 4 on a replacement computer.
Constant crashing comment brings back memories of Alpha releases 8, 9, 10, and 11 that did constantly crash (dozens of times over several weeks while trying to isolate issue) => Thankful for fix in Alpha release 12. Over various releases, have experienced Layout and Home Page crashes - glad for option to start up Logos 4 with blank layout.
Keep Smiling [:)]
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When I purchased the first version of Logos for Mac, I had looked at Accordance too (for some time). In the end what influenced my decision was the sheer number of resources for Logos. I also looked carefully at how often new resources were added over time. Logos was constantly working on adding new resources, with many new titles being added each day. The concept of Pre-Pub offers was also extremely tempting and I know I've benefitted from some of these offers over time.There's also more activity on the forums here as someone else has already mentioned. I personally have liked the way the development for mac has progressed (giving us access to various releases at each stage), and it's meant that with each release, I've been learning more about each feature as it gets added into the program.
I personally have not had that many difficulties with the alpha releases, and I've been using them for sermon preparation for some time. The forums have been a great education as well on how to use the product, and also a good source of entertainment sometimes :-) It's made the development of the product feel more like a community with many of the mac developers frequently answering questions or in other cases dropping us hints over what the next new features are going to be in the new releases.
Personally I think Logos is great, and the ability of me being able to access my resources on my mac laptop, on a windows machine, and my iPhone for no extra charge is a bonus.
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I use both and one thing that I like with Accordance is how they separate the books into categories. So far with Logos 4 Mac I still have no way of knowing whether or not I am missing any resources I purchased. I will continue using both programs and eventually decide on one or the other, once I learn the capabilities of each. They both have strengths and weaknesses.
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Patrick,
I was using beta, and I am aware of the disclaimer that informed me of its pre-release status. However, in that same disclaimer and elsewhere on the website it said that a majority of Mac users could barely tell the difference functionally between Mac and PC. This leads into your next point about the crashing. I was never able to actually use the program because it would crash before it ever loaded anything. The program would shoot my RAM usage up to 3.7 and then crash. This progresses to the third point that my library most definitely had already been indexed.
Thus, though I understand that I bought it as a pre-release, it was not made clear to me that this product would not work unless I spent hours sending logs and getting updates and hoping that it wouldn't crash. For the sake of my sanity, it was better for me to purchase Accordance. I haven't run into a glitch yet.
Derek
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RIchard K Ross said:
So far with Logos 4 Mac I still have no way of knowing whether or not I am missing any resources I purchased. I
You are not missing any resources you purchased as your licenses are synced with the Logos server and the resources downloaded and updated automatically.
RIchard K Ross said:one thing that I like with Accordance is how they separate the books into categories
As for categories, you will want to make good use of Collections. Collections make's Logos very useful at managing (according to your own customization) extremely large libraries. I have almost 4,000 resources and find that with a little work up front on Collections the library is extremely manageable. You might want to check out Thomas Black's recent blog post: http://blog.logos.com/archives/2010/09/collections_as_virtual_bookshelves.html
Jacob Hantla
Pastor/Elder, Grace Bible Church
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Hi Derek,
It is great to see that you are keeping up with developments here on the forum even though you have stopped using Logos.
Since you brought Logos it would be a shame not to be able to use it at all. You never know when it might come in handy.
Have you had a try with the latest release? Your experiences earlier were atypical and are even rarer now. I should think that things would run much smoother for you this far down the line.
I think it fair to point out that this thread is seeking to help the originator to describe the current differences between the two programmes rather than as they were some months ago.
Why not have a go at the latest release and let us know how you get on with an up-todate version?
tootle pip
Mike
Now tagging post-apocalyptic fiction as current affairs. Latest Logos, MacOS, iOS and iPadOS
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Thanks, Jacob. I will take a look at Thomas' blog.
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I love Accordance... I also love Logos 4.... Each has it's own charm and use. I like how Logos opens automatically all related commentaries for passage (though it sometimes misses items), Logos has a wonderful selection of resources many more than there are in Accordance, but despite what people say Logos is not always cheaper in fact sometimes it is much cheaper, take Nelson's Word biblical commentary LOGOS 700, ACCORDANCE 400 (logos has one additional book JOB volume 2). Also accordance has some items not available in logos, I love the poetic Revised English Bible. I wouldn't want to be without either, I find original language study far easier in Accordance, as well as much faster switch in parallel resources. Also general Bible reading in accordance is nicer for me with the exception that footnotes are a separate module. so you can see them in a small window as you scroll which is super nice for something like NET bible, or the NAB, but in general the pop up notes in Logos are nicer. Logos devotionals are nice in that they pop open to the proper day when you open them up automatically. And I could go on (also i saw someone state iphone ipad were a reason to go logos, but logos is going to have a lot of catch up to do soon there, accordances app will actually allow you to install any of you owned files to your phone, because Logos uses a cloud setup, they have to get permission from the publishers, most all the items I want to use on Logos are not iphone compatible because of the silly cloud model, even downloading items to phone for airplane mode, leaves you unable to access footnotes).
If you can only buy one examine both carefully, get the one which one will work best for you. I am slightly more partial to Accordance, but I would advise anyone to consider purchasing BOTH, are good and the life application bible notes are reason enough to own accordance.
Although I use to say the two Daily study bible series were reason enough to own Logos, but those two series are some of the non cloudable and no longer purchasable items. Also my Jerome biblical commentary and Oxford Bible Commentary are the same way.
-Dan
PS: Logos is working on bring back the Barclay to Logos although this will be the latest rendition, NRSV replacing his lovely translation and the text being updated and gender neutralized. Personally I prefer people for men and humankind vs mankind, etc, but I do feel the loss of Barclay's translation lessons the series, and there is no word on bring back the OT series.
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Daniel W. Francis said:
espite what people say Logos is not always cheaper in fact sometimes it is much cheaper, take Nelson's Word biblical commentary LOGOS 700, ACCORDANCE 400 (logos has one additional book JOB volume
WBC for Logos has been on sale for $400 more than once. That's the thing with Logos, to get the best price, you have to get books when they're on special (or pre-pub) or talk to sales for better prices. Not sure why they do that but I suspect it's a marketing tool: limit what is on sale at any particular time to generate interest.
MacBook Pro (2019), ThinkPad E540
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TJ,
Looking forward to your post. Glad I can now officially reply as a user and not as a marketing employee [:)]
Three main things come to mind on why I chose (prior, during, and after being an employee) Logos over Accordance.
- Library - Both programs are, in essence, about accessing information in a library. Logos simply has a bigger selection. The odd of finding the book you want in Logos is greater than it is in Accordance. That's a big point for those wanting to do Biblical studies. A big library is important.
- Learning Curve - Out of the box, Logos is (in my experience) far easier to use. Before I bought Logos in seminary, I downloaded and tired the accordance demo. Nothing made sense. Search results didn't return in an easy to navigate manner and I had no idea what all the icons did. Granted, with time and reading support docs and training videos, I could have learned everything. But with logos it was "enter verse. click go." Everything was much more intuitive for me. That said, I'd add that once you become an intermediate or advanced user, both do what you want and need them to do. I'd say that Logos is MUCH more friendly out of the gate.
- Size - There is no way around the fact that Logos is the giant of the Bible Software market. As someone alluded to earlier, just compare the user forum numbers (though feel free to pick any other matrix and Logos will out do the rest of the players). What this means is that Logos has a massive in-house, in the office, development team. Because of this, you see a lot of great additions to the desktop app, like the iPhone/pad app and biblia.com. You are seeing opportunities to access your library in multiple locations. Logos is aggressively seeking out the best and the brightest to take the software to the next level and beyond.
Final thoughts (I've been holding this one back for a little while)... Accordance prides itself on being "mac native since ...." and that they are "the only software built just for mac" but these catch phrases always seemed lame to me. I don't care if you were built for mac just this morning or by Jobs himself. I care even less that you have pigeon holed yourself to one market and one platform. The fact is that Accordance is a small company, with modest revenue, and a narrow vision (from what I see) for the future of Bible Software. Logos is driven to be on the cutting edge and deliver the best digital Bible study tools on the plant... That's the sort of software I get excited about as a user and why I go with Logos 4 (and whatever Bob and the team have up their sleeve next).
Helping people find seminary scholarships and church jobs.
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Ryan Burns said:
Learning Curve - Out of the box, Logos is (in my experience) far easier to use. Before I bought Logos in seminary, I downloaded and tired the accordance demo. Nothing made sense. Search results didn't return in an easy to navigate manner and I had no idea what all the icons did. Granted, with time and reading support docs and training videos, I could have learned everything. But with logos it was "enter verse. click go." Everything was much more intuitive for me. That said, I'd add that once you become an intermediate or advanced user, both do what you want and need them to do. I'd say that Logos is MUCH more friendly out of the gate.
I own and use both Logos and Accordance. Each has its own strength. Which to purchase is a 6 of one half-dozen of the other type of evaluation.
#2 I completely disagree with this evaluation. "Enter verse, click go" has always worked with Accordance.
If your #3 carries any real weight, we should all scrap our Macs and go for Windows. We would all drive Toyota. The herd is not always right.
#1 is the only criteria that carries any real weight in this discussion.
As a member (or even former member) of the Logos marketing department, I suspect that you are somewhat biased.
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Luomat:
You raise an interesting and, for me at least, important question. As a seminary professor teaching the Old Testament on the basis of the Hebrew text I am often asked by students and pastors what bible software I recommend. I started using software to study the bible back in the early 1980s, and through the years I have used almost everything that has come along. I was exposed to Gramcord while it was still under development in the early 80s, and I began using Accordance, which implemented Gramcord for the Macintosh as soon as it became available in 1994. So I have used it extensively for 16 years now, and am heavily invested in it. I purchased Logos as soon as it became available for the Macintosh, mostly so that I could be familiar with it in order to answer student questions but also to access a few resources that I had received from publishers in Logos format. The following observations are based on my own use of bible software over a long period of time. I have no connections to Logos, Accordance, BibleWorks, or any other software publisher, except as a customer.
For most of the last 20 years or so I have responded to the question of which bible software students should buy by saying that they should try all of the software available for their hardware and choose the one that they felt most comfortable with. I thought the best bible software was the bible software students would actually use. As the software as evolved from the mid-90s to the mid-00s, I judged that there was not enough of a difference between the packages to justify making a strong categorical recommendation in favor of any one package over another. They all did more-or-less the same thing, and more-or less-equally well. As I said above, I used Accordance as my own primary tool, and I enthusiastically recommended it to Mac users who wanted something to help with original-language study. And I know for a fact that I ‘sold’ a lot of copies of Accordance to students and colleagues. When Logos v. 1 for the Mac became available I encouraged students to take a look at it, but frankly I was not particularly impressed with it, and still preferred Accordance.
All of that changed for me when I first saw Logos 4 in the fall of 2009. At that time it was only available for Windows, but Logos announced that they would be doing a Mac version that would be feature-equivalent to the Windows version. I downloaded the first alpha that was available, and have worked with it ever since. (To be fair, I worked mainly with the Windows version running under Parallels until we got to about Alpha 23, when I judged the Mac version to be far enough along that I could use it as my primary tool.) Beginning in the spring of 2010 I started strongly advising students and colleagues to use Logos instead of Accordance (or BibleWorks for Windows users) and continue to do so. Since the release of Logos 4 it is clear to me that Logos now stands head and shoulders above everything else. Here are the four main reasons for my recommendation:
(1) Logos is better at what the average parish pastor needs to do.
Virtually all of my own bible study is study of the text in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. All of the students that I teach in our M.Div. program are required to learn Hebrew and Greek. Nevertheless, I recognize that even our students will spend most of their study time with English translations, and they will be preparing to teach Christians who almost exclusively read the bible in English. Life in the modern world being what it is, pastors have a lot of demands on their time, and are not always able to set aside as much time as they should to devote themselves to the study of the Word. Thus, they need a tool that both supports their English-language study and supports their original-language study, and does so in a way that helps them maximize the benefit of their study and preparation time. Logos 4 does this better than anything else. The Passage Guide, Exegetical Guide, and Bible Word Study Guide jump-start a pastor’s preparation (or a layman’s study time), and point them directly and quick to the most relevant and helpful resources that they have available (depending, of course, on what they own). The Biblical People, Places, and Things tools bring together a lot of information quickly and point the way to avenues for further study. And the platform provides a vast array of resources to support both the study of the Word and, equally important, the teaching of the Word. Even though I am a 'professional exegete', I realize that the average parish pastor needs something different than I need from bible study software. Easy and efficient access to the program’s features is quite important to pastors, and Logos excels in this regard. Fortunately it does both what parish pastors need, and what we 'professional exegetes' need. That's a rare and good thing.
(2) Its About the Resources, Stupid.
Pardon my being blunt (and don't take it personally), but it is very easy to get caught up in the ‘flashy lights syndrome’, the tendency to focus on pretty, but largely irrelevant distractions. In the world of software, this largely takes the form of a focus on ‘features’, as if piling up lots of features makes for good software. What matters in bible study software is that the software not only has lots of easy-to-use features (see above), but also that those features actually lead you somewhere. In this case, that ‘somewhere’ is the library of resources. Accordance (and to a much lesser extent BibleWorks) have done a decent job of providing their users with a reasonable library of basic resources, but neither can compete with Logos. As a result of their arrangements with most major publishers of theological works, Logos gives the student of the bible the opportunity to build a substantial theological library of more than 10,000 volumes. And even more importantly, all of these resources are inter-linked within the software and work together. For most of this material, Logos is the only source for these resources in electronic form. To give a real-world example, I am a Lutheran, as are most of the students that I teach. Logos is the only platform that has any significant resources for the study of Lutheran theology, or the interpretation of the Bible by Lutheran interpreters. And not only are these valuable resources available within Logos, but they work automatically within the framework of the software, so that as soon as the student runs a tool or conducts a search, the software automatically incorporates these resources and points my students to valuable insights from within the Lutheran theological tradition (assuming they have purchased these resources) without having to do any additional work. Contrast this with BibleWorks, which has so few resources available for its users that its website actually discourages users from buying electronic resources in favor of paper ones – a great example of attempting to make a virtue out of a necessity! Given its substantial library of resources, and the way in which they work together, Logos has no rival for supporting the serious study of theology and pastoral practice. None at all.
(3) Syntax Searching
The first generation of bible software enabled us to search the text, to quickly find a vaguely-remembered passage or discover a passage that we did not know at all. The second generation of bible study software added the ability to search original-language texts morphologically, to find specific forms or words in Greek or Hebrew, and to compare the usage of a Hebrew or Greek word across a variety of contexts. Logos revolutionized bible study for those who don’t know Hebrew or Greek by making it possible for them to access information based on original-language data from within an English-only environment. However, one major weakness of all bible software is that it tends to reinforce the idea that the meaning of a text is somehow hidden within the meaning of individual words or forms. Morphological searching is very valuable, but it can also be misleading if the nature of the information provided is not well-understood by the interpreter. Simply understanding the form of a word (morphology) or how the word has been used by others (etymology and lexicography) do not of themselves provide magic keys to understanding the meaning of a passage. Understanding the meaning of a passage is ultimately dependent upon understanding how each word is used in relation to the other words in the passage. This requires contextual competence (the ability to understand how words are being used together in a literary context). And this kind of contextual competence requires an understanding of syntax and, ultimately, a degree of literary awareness. We are still a long way from the ability of bible software to help us with literary awareness. Today, the third generation of bible software has begun to make it possible for computers to support the study a text syntactically. This is a major advance, and Logos pioneered the move. We are still in the early days of this technology, but Logos has developed a number of significant resources in this direction, and more are on the way. Accordance has begun to catch up, insofar as version 9 now implements syntax searching. But the much more limited resources available — as of this writing only one resource, and that limited to Genesis and John — means that Accordance lags quite a ways behind, and is likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. BibleWorks is not in the game at all at this point.
(4) Flexibility
Over the course of my 30+ years of computer use, I have owned and/or used virtually every major operating system available. A long time ago I reached the point where I stopped being interested in tinkering with computers as a hobby and have focused on using them as tools to support my real work. I predominantly use a Macintosh because it lets me get my real work done with the least hassle. But I have no illusions that the Mac, as much as I love it, is the last word in the development of computerized technology. Ten years from now I may be using something else. And this is a last major reason that I now recommend Logos to my students. Logos 4 is the only bible software platform that runs on both Windows and the Macintosh. This is important to me, not only because it helps to preserve my investment in the resources that I have purchased, but also because it gives me confidence in knowing that I am protecting the investment of my students. I know that the students that I am teaching now will eventually be using something other than what they currently use. Windows users will become Mac users, and a few may even go the other way. A few years from now I and they may be exclusively using an iPad or something like it, or something no one has imagined yet. Logos is committed to providing excellent tools on a variety of platforms. Not only does Logos 4 run on the Macintosh and Windows, but there is a great subset of these tools available for the iPhone and iPad. I am pretty confident that if there is a sufficient market to sustain it, they will provide tools for the Android or other systems as well down the road. The point is that the world changes, and Logos knows it and is committed to keeping up with it. Since with Logos you buy the books, not the software (per se), the resources are portable, and you can use them on all the supported hardware platforms. This is a huge advantage for pastors, schools, and churches that are interested in being good stewards of the resources available to them, and is a major reason that I recommend Logos 4 to my students and to pastors that ask me.
To wrap up, it is only fair to say that there are still a few things that Accordance does a little better than Logos 4. The interface for morphology searching makes it easier to do complex morphological searching in Accordance, though the same results can be obtained from Logos. The timeline module in Accordance is better than the corresponding resources in Accordance. And while Logos provides a great set of maps to support biblical study, I find that I keep going back to the map tool in Accordance when I want to generate a map to use for my teaching. It is simply much more flexible and easier to customize. While the speed of Logos 4 is greatly improved over its predecessor, Accordance is still a bit faster, especially for morphology searching. But all of these are largely picking at details around the edges. We could compare other features, and we might find some that are better in one software and others that are better in another. The bottom line is that for all of the functions that are most important to most students of the bible, Logos is simply much better than everyone else.
I am sorry to have gone on for such a long time, but since you asked a serious question I assume that you are interested in a substantial answer. Then again, that is probably a professional hazard of seminary professors.
David L. Adams
Concordia Seminary
St. Louis, Mo., USA
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Jack Caviness said:
#2 I completely disagree with this evaluation. "Enter verse, click go" has always worked with Accordance.
That's fine. We've had different experiences. However, my experience was after entering the verse and clicking go in Accordance, it wasn't intuitive for me as to what to do next. My experience as a first time user with both programs was that Logos was a more user friendly experience out of the box.
Jack Caviness said:If your #3 carries any real weight, we should all scrap our Macs and
go for Windows. We would all drive Toyota. The herd is not always right.Not sure that's an apples to apples conclusion. My point isn't about herd, but about resources. Logos has 180+ employees and revenue to support future development. While, sure, large companies have issues sometimes but if based on current user, $$, and growth, Logos is seems like a good ship to be on. The proof is in the pudding. Logos can more quickly generate new products more quickly and at a greater rate than Accordance because they have the resources. Accordance doesn't have an iphone app (been in development for 6 months +/-) or any online access to their resources (that I know of). Logos has all those things because they are a bigger company with more resources to expend on expansion and growth. As a user, that is a factor worth considering, right? If you want an iphone app and online access to your resources (and whatever other cool things you can think of) who is most likely to deliver?
Jack Caviness said:#1 is the only criteria that carries any real weight in this discussion.
Hey, I vote with my $$ just like the rest of you. The query for feedback was why "I" chose Logos over Accordance... those are "my" 3 reasons that I chose and choose Logos and they carry weight with me. So, hard to say they don't carry weight in the discussion.
Jack Caviness said:As a member (or even former member) of the Logos marketing department, I suspect that you are somewhat biased.
Everyone is biased, including me. No problem there.
All this is just my 2 cents.
Helping people find seminary scholarships and church jobs.
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Daniel W. Francis said:
And I could go on (also i saw someone state iphone ipad were a reason to go logos, but logos is going to have a lot of catch up to do soon there, accordances app will actually allow you to install any of you owned files to your phone, because Logos uses a cloud setup, they have to get permission from the publishers, most all the items I want to use on Logos are not iphone compatible because of the silly cloud model, even downloading items to phone for airplane mode, leaves you unable to access footnotes).
Just so you know... we're not done with our iPhone app. It's getting some pretty serious (and cool!) attention. So, I don't think it's fair to compare our shipping-nearly-a-year app to someone else's not-yet-shipping app. You should compare our "not shipping yet" app to their "not shipping yet" app. And, while I'm not making an announcement, I'll suggest that then the comparison above will be irrelevant. :-)
-- Bob
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David Adams said:
While the speed of Logos 4 is greatly improved over its predecessor, Accordance is still a bit faster, especially for morphology searching. But all of these are largely picking at details around the edges.
A few months ago I ran across a blog of someone who was testing Accordance, Bible Works, and Logos at some sort of conference. It was a very technical morph study of Hebrew weak verbs. The conclusion of the study (I think) was that Bible Works couldn't do it, Logos kind of could, and Accordance could. I wonder if anyone knows where that blog was and if Logos 4 does it any better/faster.
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David Adams said:
I am sorry to have gone on for such a long time, but since you asked a serious question I assume that you are interested in a substantial answer. Then again, that is probably a professional hazard of seminary professors.
Thank you Sir for taking the time. Your post is very informative!
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Bob Pritchett said:Daniel W. Francis said:
And I could go on (also i saw someone state iphone ipad were a reason to go logos, but logos is going to have a lot of catch up to do soon there, accordances app will actually allow you to install any of you owned files to your phone, because Logos uses a cloud setup, they have to get permission from the publishers, most all the items I want to use on Logos are not iphone compatible because of the silly cloud model, even downloading items to phone for airplane mode, leaves you unable to access footnotes).
Just so you know... we're not done with our iPhone app. It's getting some pretty serious (and cool!) attention. So, I don't think it's fair to compare our shipping-nearly-a-year app to someone else's not-yet-shipping app. You should compare our "not shipping yet" app to their "not shipping yet" app. And, while I'm not making an announcement, I'll suggest that then the comparison above will be irrelevant. :-)
-- Bob
Fair Enough and I am very happy to hear that you are working on updates for the iphone. I wasn't sure it was an on going project, i mean your widget never got updated, and accord's one is nice for super quick bible passage copying when you don;t want to bother opening up you app. I don't mean to infer anything bad about your program (other than lack of PPC support but then I know you can't support old hardware forever). If I could crossgrade over all my files from accordance I might even consider deleting Accordance. I like like both and use both daily. And truth be known if i had to make a choice of one only I would likely choose Logos, it is a great program. But thankfully I can have both. And while i would recommend Logos to anyone I want every mac user to know Accordance is out there and an option, and possibly for some a better one.
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Ryan Burns said:
My point isn't about herd, but about resources. Logos has 180+ employees and revenue to support future development. While, sure, large companies have issues sometimes but if based on current user, $$, and growth, Logos is seems like a good ship to be on. The proof is in the pudding. Logos can more quickly generate new products more quickly and at a greater rate than Accordance because they have the resources. Accordance doesn't have an iphone app (been in development for 6 months +/-) or any online access to their resources (that I know of). Logos has all those things because they are a bigger company with more resources to expend on expansion and growth. As a user, that is a factor worth considering, right? If you want an iphone app and online access to your resources (and whatever other cool things you can think of) who is most likely to deliver?
They've also been involved in developing for the Mac since the early 90s, and have released two working versions of their Mac app in the time it took Logos to get one working Mac version released.
Logos has been in the Mac market for a very short amount of time for their users (former employees?) to be skeptical about their ability to deliver.
Logos has an iPhone app, but honestly it's been of little use to Mac users before now. It will be interesting to see how much more useful version 1 of Accordance's iOS app is than Logos' was.
So yes, Logos has more resources to throw at development, but their offerings on the Mac and iOS haven't been so far ahead as to leave distance Accordance can't cover.
After a few days with Logos 4, I keep coming back to the speed and performance issues. There are a lot of pastors out there with 3, 4, 5 year-old computers. I was really surprised to see Logos' answer to be:
"On older computers, Logos 4 can be sluggish. We recommend purchasing a new computer or sticking with Logos 3 until you can."
source: http://www.logos.com/4/faq
That's just not likely scenario for most pastors (anyone been to a church budgeting meeting lately?), especially when looking at a software purchase of several hundred dollars.
The library options that Logos has are truly impressive. To me, that seems like it might be the decisive factor in choosing between the two software packages, for most people. It's also the toughest element for one person to evaluate for another.
Comparing these two programs is no easy task.
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Correction: "Two versions of Accordance" is inaccurate. I was thinking there had been a new version of Accordance when I first started using it, but that was just a "point" release bug fix.
The point I wanted to make was that it seems specious to say "You're better off with a bigger developer" when that developer doesn't have much of history on the Mac.
This is why this comparison is difficult. Sure, you get a bigger development team and a bigger library with Logos. But Accordance is giving 100% of their attention to a Mac version with a longer history. I'm guessing that will show a difference in the iOS app that Accordance releases, even if it comes in later than the Logos app.
I dunno. I'm just trying to see this all from several angles.
It would be nice if both Logos and Accordance could coordinate their release schedules so somewhere mid-October we had stable new releases of both the Mac and iOS versions. :-)
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Hi Luomat,
Allow me a moment to give a little background, I'm a PK who grew up loving to read, and while the Lord has not, as yet, called me to the pastorate, I have audited the odd seminary class hear and there when I was near a seminary. So basically I'm possibly a different perspective altogether. It would be a tad disingenuous to call me a true laymen, but at the same time I'm not relying on either Accordance or Logos to assist in my profession.
I also must confess I'm in the Software industry, though not affiliated with either product discussed here.
I own both Accordance and Logos. I was a big fan of Logos, before I switched platforms from PC to Mac. So 2.5 years ago I was one of the ones beta'ing the first librionix beta. I disliked the instability of it, and , to tell the truth, disliked the fact that some of the best parts of Logos was itself missing. So I went looking for another Bible software package. I eventually came across Accordance, and liked it far better that my other options. I should note that I briefly entertained the idea of VMWARE fusion + XP + Logos, but eventually passed on that since the only valid XP license I had available was from work, and thus meant that should I ever leave work I would need to find that Bible software process again.
So I've used Accordance for about 2 Years. Coming back to Logos with Logos 4 as soon as I became aware of it. I will likely soon dump Accordance altogether. There are two key reasons for this :
- Ease of Use/Ergonomics. (Including comany website)
- Choice of additional titles to the Library.
- Mobile apps.
I'll explain each below:
First, the "Ease of Use/Ergonomic" aspect. In two years I've never really had much luck with setting up devotionals in Accordance, in Logos it's child's play. If I want to do searches beyond just "words" and "verses" in Accordance it's a chore, in Logos its a Breeze. Now don't get me wrong, Accordance allows you a lot of flexibility and their concept of workspaces is pretty nice, if all you are really do is a Bible study, but you can do the same in Logos, and for me it is just a simpler to use interface. I included the company website as part of this because I cannot divorce the product from the company website, especially since both companies provide additional books/titles/products/support through that website. Right now If I search for "Martin Luther" on the Logos website, I get a very professional looking output with a very easy way to identify what are products from logos, and how much they cost. On the Accordance website it's generated visa vie a googles search and is pure text. Like so many things in Accordance the website ultimately does the same thing Logos does, only it requires a lot more manual work on my part to parse the information.
Point 2 is the choice of additional titles. And here it's a no contest. If you happen to be someone who is of the Reformed faith within the Church, well Logos has material avaible that Accordance doesn't have, or once again Accordance's website has let it down. Go do a search on A. A. Hodge, R. L. Dabney, James Henley Thornwell, or any number of presbyterian Theologians. On the Accordance website absolutely zero shows up. On Logos, they are already there or on the way, in fact the Scholar's Edition includes Cornelius Van Til in it's package.
FInally, the Mobile apps. I have access to my entire library through Logos apps for my iPhone and iPad (and yes I have both). Accordance is promising something in the future, but so far I don't have anything I could use.
If the libraries you need/want are available on both products, and the mobil aspect doesn't appeal then ultimately I do believe it is very much a "nikon versus canon" type of argument, as both a very useful powerful tools. However for me, the mobile apps and the extensive library of reformed theologians makes it a no brainer now that Logos has a mac native product.
-Mark
http://livinginlaodicea.wordpress.com/
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Jeremy said:
A few months ago I ran across a blog of someone who was testing Accordance, Bible Works, and Logos at some sort of conference.
I see that no one has responded to your question, so I did a bit of searching and found this blog http://thislamp.com/?p=230 . If this what you were looking for?
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Jack Caviness said:Jeremy said:
A few months ago I ran across a blog of someone who was testing Accordance, Bible Works, and Logos at some sort of conference.
I see that no one has responded to your question, so I did a bit of searching and found this blog http://thislamp.com/?p=230 . If this what you were looking for?
Yep that was it. Can anyone here actually do what the blog asked? Could Logos 4 even run that type of search in November of 2009?
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I also own the latest versions of both packages. I actually started with Accordance 7 back when I first switched to the Mac back on 2005. (Actually I started with QuickVerse and was totally unsatisfied with it, but didn't want to spend the money on Accordance, but realised the I really disliked QuickVerse and Accordance was the only other real option when I switched). I felt that Accordance was a powerful program, but not particularly user friendly for non-scholar, non-seminary, non-pastor types. I am just an "ordinary" church member who wants to study the Bible in either English or Spanish (I actually work in a Spanish ministry). Over the course of time, I learned to appreciate the flexibility of Accordance and especially its speed (which is still second to none, especially with V9). But still I always felt I was someone out of my depth with the program and that too much of the program was really designed for scholars and not ordinary lay folk who just want to study the Bible.
When I bought my netbook to supplement my Macs, I wanted a good Bible study program to use on Windows 7 and since Accordance isn't available on Windows, I did some research and went with Logos. At the time I bought Logos, it was on sale for 20% off which made it irresistible! I bought the Bible Study package and I was stunned by the ease of use and flexibility of Logos 4. (Although, on a netbook, it's hardly fast. It's useable, but no one in his right mind is going to use Logos 4 exclusively on a netbook even with 2 gigs of RAM). For a non-scholar, the passage guide is fantastic and Accordance doesn't really have anything to match it. I actually was reluctant to admit that I really liked Logos 4 better than Accordance, but the truth is I find that Logos 4 really is more appropriate for the type of Bible study that I do. Add to that the number of titles you get with Logos 4 and the ability to buy e-books as well and Logos 4 is a clear winner to me. Accordance may be perfect for scholars, but for Joe Layman I think Logos 4 is more apt.
However, I have to say that I'm totally unimpressed with the iPhone app. For one thing, the Bible that I actually use the most in Spanish isn't available for the iPhone app (The Reina-Valera 1960). Also, I find the app to be a bit unpolished and as far as I can tell, there's no way to use a split screen to see, for example, a Bible and commentary, that scroll together. So for my mobile Bible study I actually use Laridian's Pocket Bible which I think is the BEST of mobile Bible study applications. (I've been using Pocket Bible for years on the Palm, Windows Mobile and now iPhone and I have a LOT of resources for it). I also use Olive Tree's Bible Reader for my RVR60 since Laridian doesn't have it available.
But back to Accordance and Logos 4: I started using Logos 4 on the Mac back during the early Alphas (while simultaneously using it on Windows on either my netbook or in Boot Camp on my Macs), and while the early Alphas were too unstable to be useful, by the mid-betas I found it perfectly stable enough to use on my Macs as my primary Bible study tool.
For now, I intend to keep both on my Mac. I have some resources in Accordance that I don't have in Logos and vice-versa. But 90% of the time, I use Logos because I just find it fits my needs better with the number of resources and the Passage Guide which I just love!
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Jeremy said:Jack Caviness said:Jeremy said:
A few months ago I ran across a blog of someone who was testing Accordance, Bible Works, and Logos at some sort of conference.
I see that no one has responded to your question, so I did a bit of searching and found this blog http://thislamp.com/?p=230 . If this what you were looking for?
Yep that was it. Can anyone here actually do what the blog asked? Could Logos 4 even run that type of search in November of 2009?
Living and learning - blog comments included Accordance handout - tried to replicate 1st Bible shootout challenge item using same Hebrew word - opened Lexham Hebrew-English Interlinear - hovered over word to show parsing - double clicked for Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon - right click Bible Word Study:
For 2nd challenge, Accordance presentation started with different greek word. Personally curious - stayed with initial Hebrew word - Lexham Hebrew-English Interlinear did not have corresponding LXX greek word, so looked in Library for LXX resources - found "The Parallel Aligned Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Texts of Jewish Scripture" - right clicking on parallel did nothing - back to library for another LXX resource - opened "Septuagint with Logos Morphology" - used parallel aligned resource to choose Greek word - right click Bible Word Study (BWS) - clicking on Hebrew lemma (initial word) in BWS showed 11 occurrences of LXX translation with verses in English. Back to "Septuagint with Logos Morphology" - clicked interlinear display to show Greek and Hebrew on bottom of panel - right click on Greek word has many options - also noticed Greek and Hebrew parsing on bottom of screen.
Adjusted panel sizes some - then screen shot on 27" iMac - full size image is 2,473 pixels wide by 1,440 pixels tall.
Looking at Accordance handout, recognized Logos 4 Bible Word Study lacks ability to filter/group by grammatical usage.
From forum postings, suspect some MVP's could answer about Logos 4 search capabilities on PC in November 2009.
Keep Smiling [:)]
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Living and learning
Thank you for the superb analysis.
rom forum postings, suspect some MVP's could answer about Logos 4 search capabilities on PC in November 2009.
I did not attempt such an operation in November 2009. The most important consideration is the current capabilities of the two applications. I regularly use—and really like—both. At present, I use Logos more than Accordance, but that may be due to involvement in the various Alpha/Beta releases on both Windows and Mac.
The ideal situation is to own both, but if that is financially prohibitive, investigate. Test both in your real world environment under your preferred Bible Study method. Demo versions and low cost introductory packages are available. Different people will come to different conclusions.
Some customers of both Logos and Accordance are passionate about their choice and fiercely loyal to their chosen application. It is almost as bad as the Windows/Mac debates. Hey! They're tools, not objects of worship. [8-|]
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Looking at Accordance handout, recognized Logos 4 Bible Word Study lacks ability to filter/group by grammatical usage.
This is something I started a thread about a few weeks ago. L3 seemed to be able to do this. I know you can pretty much do it using the regular searching, but I would like to see it in the word study. It just seemed a little easier that way.
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Jeremy said:
Looking at Accordance handout, recognized Logos 4 Bible Word Study lacks ability to filter/group by grammatical usage.
This is something I started a thread about a few weeks ago. L3 seemed to be able to do this. I know you can pretty much do it using the regular searching, but I would like to see it in the word study. It just seemed a little easier that way.
Concur - like range of meaning shown by Bible Word Study (BWS) rings, including pop-up when hovering over ring section:
Dreaming of BWS rings in Grammatical Relationships (Subject, Adverb, Object, ...), ideally with Translation choice.
Keep Smiling [:)]
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The proof is NOT in the pudding. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Look it up.
Rich+
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Monroe R Miller said:
The proof is NOT in the pudding. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Look it up.
OK (easy NEAR search - left side of screen shot) - 3rd bible shootout item bit more challenging - morph search lower right:
Found Library has Sentence Analysis resources (hover mouse over word for parsing - bottom left); opening multiple copies of same resource helpful. Also noticed search results highlighted in NA27 text.
Note: screen shot on 27" iMac - full size image is 2,472 pixels wide by 1,440 pixels tall.
Did morph search for 100 words (match Accordance Handout); turns out changing 100 to 15 yields same results:
(Οἱ BEFORE 1 Word δέ) AND (@V????[^NP] AFTER 15 Words lemma:δέ) ANDNOT (@C AFTER 15 Words lemma:δέ)
By the way, learned Logos 4 has 20 morph search subtypes for Conjunction.
Keep Smiling [:)]
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Here are my 2 cents.
First of all, my experience with both Logos and Accordance customer service puts them both at the top of ALL applications on my Mac. They are both exemplary in their promptness, understanding, clarity and helpfulness. Both companies have a good philosophy here and good employees carrying it out. Quick Verse on the other hand... (I know that's not our topic, but the comparison is relevant). I am not convinced that Quick Verse has any customer support employees at all! Contact was never possible except for automated e-mail responses, promising an answer would come later, which it never did.
Second, with Logos 4, Logos seems to have approached everything they do from the standpoint of how the user interacts with the software and materials. I know of no other software on the Mac (at all) that takes care of its own maintenance so effectively and unobtrusively. (OK there were some bugs with indexing on Alpha versions, but no more for me). Adobe could learn something here!!! Logos updates itself, keeps all of my purchases online and intact, doesn't require me to enter an admin password. It just works and keeps working. I get the feeling that even better things are coming just based on how motivated the software developers are. You guys have done great work!
I have tried over and over to understand Accordance, but even with their tutorials I just scratch my head and think "too bad I'm not a software designer, cause maybe then I'd understand why they did stuff this way". The Logos Home screen is great, the customizable Bible Reading plans are great. Highlighting and taking notes that works (almost) intuitively. (When you highlight a verse, it would be good if the Notes window brought you to THAT verse immediately, instead of starting you at Genesis again). To this day, I think I've made 2 Notes with that function on Accordance.
I do like with Accordance that I can have German and English translations scrolling synchronized and that it starts quickly. The fact that Logos automatically saves your desktop view regularly is great, whereas Accordance requires a dialog box for this, with clumsy steps thereafter "name this desktop..." (same name) "do you want to replace this desktop and all its contents?" I just give up and hit cancel. Why can't a simple "command save" just update the desktop in Accordance, something that Logos does itself invisibly.
OK, maybe it was 4 cents
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Jeffrey Hands said:
When you highlight a verse, it would be good if the Notes window brought you to THAT verse immediately, instead of starting you at Genesis again
Slightly off-topic: this will be fixed soon in an upcoming release.
David Mitchell
Development Lead
Faithlife0 -
Thank you David.
Your prompt answer plus the coming fix is exactly what I meant when I said that Logos has motivated programmers who are preparing good things for the next releases!
greetings from Munich,
Jeff
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Sometimes when software has a lot of technical forum help, it's because something isn't as obvious as it should be. I think Accordance shines in being intuitive and having pretty detailed help so I don't have to always ask on their forum. I hope that I don't have to become a frequent poster on the Logos 4 forum after I make my purchase.
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Jeffrey Hands said:
I just give up and hit cancel. Why can't a simple "command save" just update the desktop in Accordance, something that Logos does itself invisibly.
Workspaces are updated with a Command Save. And while this isn;t a place sing the praises of Accordance, I will say I like the flexibility it has compared to Logos for customizing the way I start up... I have several work spaces set up, including NIV Study Bible, Expositor Commentary ESV SB and NLT SB, one click and in less time than it takes for Logos to even think of loading I am up and running. I like logos and it has a nice user interface, but the home page is limiting for me. And it't log on is frustrating, it has often it taken 4 or 5 attempts for it to successfully log on.
-dan
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Living and learning - 4th Bible Shootout - Logos 4 has easy morph search for interjection - @I - found some quirks (e.g. Lemma sort order and result line display):
Logos 4 Mac 4.0a SR-1 (and Logos 4 PC 4.2 Beta 1) include accent marks when sorting Lemma's - hence alpha sorted after delta and omicron. In separate forum post, reported bug about Lemma display missing in result line after option+click (along with 2 verbs in interjection result list). Morph search of Old Testament passage: Genesis - Malachi includes some apocryphal results. Can display graph of NT results, but cannot display OT graph. Comparing lemma's found in Logos 4 to Accordance handout, noticed Logos found 19 lemmas in LXX (some in apocrypha) while Accordance handout had 8. Likewise Accordance handout shows interjection translations - in Logos 4, LXX reverse interlinear bit challenging since Hebrew word order flipped (dreaming of Logos Bible Word Study enhancement - filter or group by morphology). Aligning search results facilitates looking for contextual usage patterns by various authors.
Note: screen shot on 27" iMac - full size image is 2,478 pixels wide by 1,440 pixels tall (annotated with arrow to show cursor location for verse pop-up from NT result graph).
Keep Smiling [:)]
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Daniel W. Francis said:
I like Logos and it has a nice user interface, but the home page is limiting for me. And its log on is frustrating, it has often it taken 4 or 5 attempts for it to successfully log on.
Quick note: you can set up Logos to automatically load your last active layout on startup, rather than the home page.
Also, if Logos prompts you to log in every time you start the app, there may be some incorrectly configured file permissions on your system. If you post in a new thread, we may be able to get that sorted out for you.
David Mitchell
Development Lead
Faithlife0