Full mobile offline support

Hi there

I have a question about the mobile apps, about perspective of the faithlife team about this issue.

I bought the bronze package and am very happy how it works on my MacBook.

But on iPhone / iPad, I was very shocked! This because of two reason:

First, 1/2 of the nice features (for example gospel comparision, Interlinearview, Paralell perikopes, and so on) are just not available on mobile devices. Can you explain me the reason behind this, and what future plans are? I‘m a little bit disappointed … for two reasons again

Why you just can‘t show the same parallel verses / perikopes like on desktop? I can‘t imagine this is very difficult to do
On iPad especially, interlinear & gospel comparision would work very nicely, Even enough calculating power would be there

Then second one, even bigger issue. Currently I am abroad for a few months. In my home in switzerland, internet is not an issue at all. But abroad, or already when travelling (for example in plane), but especially in rural areas in third world countries, you just can‘t expect your users to have internet connection.

I am happy that the basic function “reading the bible“ works offline. But I cant even look up the word info of hebrew or greek word. Why it has to be that way? I spent money to buy internet to download all the resources, including interlinear datasets, and then as soon as internet is turned off, I cant get meaning of words, no word form information, nothing …

I‘m migrating from OliveTree. There you just click and you have the information. Online offline doesnt matter. Of course, it is way better designed in Logos Mobile, but what helps this if it doesnt work without internet?

Or the passage assistent? Why can‘t I just get information about my downloaded books depending on bible passage? So whats the use of downloading? I have apple devices. so computing power wont be an issue.

@faithlife, can you please share your thoughts about this? And how you think about changing this in future updates?

Please dont ignore remote christians and missionaries … they need logos maybe more than someone in a big city …

And dont understand me wrong, I appreciate the work done by you as team, especially desktop version. Even mobile version would be very nice, if it would work reliable offline, (and some more functions would be there).

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Comments

DMB

@faithlife, can you please share your thoughts about this? And how you think about changing this in future updates?

I'm not from Faithlife, but you're much more likely to get the 'We're sorry this is an issue for you. Your comments and suggestions are always invaluable in planning our future development. Thank you so very much.'

But the requirement for online connection is probably their future ... many of the designs on the desktop app presume online access for the mobiles and app.logos.com (eg Atlas). My guess, is they envision a pastor with easy access to the internet, whether during preaching, or at the dentist. They're not in the missions business.

EDIT: I was curious, so I tried a few of the mobile tools on my Mac M1, offline. Locked up the app solid. Poorly designed, like much of their work.

Mark Barnes (Logos)

I'm sorry for the delay in responding to this.

Although our mobile app has been around for a long time, it's less than half as long as our desktop app. Every year we add more features into the mobile app, bringing it closer to the desktop, but -- as you've discovered -- we're some way from parity. We're working on that, but we also want to add new features to mobile that maybe aren't available on desktop, such as the Print Library Scanner or Preaching Mode. So it's tough to keep pace.

The online/offline issue is a very real one. To offer full offline support, we'd need to create an index of all books on your device. It can take hours on Logos Desktop to build an index, and the index often takes up almost as much space as the resources themselves. Many users have lower-power devices or limited storage, and that would be a problem for them. On the other hand, other users like yourself have limited internet access. To make the problem worse, often it's the same users who have BOTH low-power devices and limited internet access.

Generally, though, we've found that there are more people with low power and limited storage than there are with poor internet access, which is one reason we've taken the route we have. We do re-evaluate those decisions periodically, so that may change in the future. For example, we've recently been discussing whether we can improve search when working offline (which is hard, when there's no index, but we might be able to do it).

We could, of course, support both online AND offline. But doing so would probably add at least 50% extra time to every feature we build, which would then make it even harder to get feature parity closer to desktop...

I'm afraid there aren't any easy solutions -- but I've certainly taken your post as a strong vote towards more parity and more offline support.

Rick Erickson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1261131#Comment_1261131

Mark,

Am I to understand the mobile doesn't create an index of the download resources? I just finished downloading my 4000+ resources to my iPad so I can work offline. I tried to do a search and it never finished. If this is the case, is there any value in having resources downloaded at all? My iPad is twice as powerful as my laptop and has considerable storage. I was hoping the local (indexed) resources would allow me to go anywhere with my iPad.

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1261799#Comment_1261799

is there any value in having resources downloaded at all?

Not 4000 of them! To the contrary, the mobile app is prone to corruption. The more resources you have downloaded, the more troubles you might have.

Should you download any resources? Yes. The ones you use most frequently, the ones you might use and want in a pinch.

Rick Erickson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1261803#Comment_1261803

Thanks for that info regarding the corruption - didn't know that. The problem is other than a known Bible or two, a dictionary and a commentary I don't know what I need until I perform a search of some sort. I guess the FactBook would be useless then? My iPad is the most powerful computer I own - by far. It's unfortunate it can't be leveraged. This seems kind of silly in today's world of insanely powerful / mega storage mobile devices. And storage really isn't an issue with most modern devices. My 4000+ resources take 25GB on my iPad - that's a single Christmas party of 4k video.

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1261807#Comment_1261807

My iPad is the most powerful computer I own - by far. It's unfortunate it can't be leveraged. This seems kind of silly in today's world of insanely powerful / mega storage mobile devices.

My cordless drill is really powerful... but it still isn't a hammer. Mobile devices, including iPhones and iPads are indeed very powerful. But they are not designed to function in the same way that desktop/laptop computers are.

At some point things will change... but not yet. And when they do, it will not be with the device you currently own.

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1261803#Comment_1261803

Should you download any resources? Yes. The ones you use most frequently, the ones you might use and want in a pinch.

... remembering that if you are on WiFi or Cellular additional resources can be downloaded quite quickly should they be needed.

Rick Erickson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1261819#Comment_1261819

I guess this is where we will have to respectfully disagree. My iPad and Laptop are both COMPUTERS (not drills and hammers). They are both designed to do the exact same 'computing' thing and function in the same way (at least in the Apple world) - albeit my iPad offering additional 'touch/pen' functionality (ironically something Logos IS leveraging).

What appears to be different is the Logos 'Mobile' software. What needs to change is that. I understand and reluctantly accept that Logos hasn't prioritized the mobile experience (and think it was/is a bit myopic on their part). But to say my expectations of the mobile experience are wrong because I'm trying to use a drill in place of a hammer is a poor analogy - sorry.

To put it a different way: If I could put Mac OS instead of iOS on my iPad (and Apple is working hard to merge the two) I'm guessing Logos would function exactly the same way as my laptop. It's not a device issue.

Rick Erickson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1261833#Comment_1261833

... remembering that if you are on WiFi or Cellular additional resources can be downloaded quite quickly should they be needed.

Yes - things work well in this mode. In fact, I prefer how Logos handles the Layouts/Tabs on the mobile.

Now, IF (and I think this is the main thing that's missing) you could download many/all resources to the local device and index them for 'offline' use it would be huge. I can do this with my laptop - it should be no different. If I take my laptop 'on the road' with me, it doesn't have WiFi or Cellular (sitting in my car for 2-hours waiting for my daughter to get out of dance class [:D]) but it still functions exactly as if sitting at home - at least in my limited experience. There really is no 'technical' reason my iPad shouldn't behave the exact same way.

JT (alabama24)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1261847#Comment_1261847

They are both designed to do the exact same 'computing' thing and function in the same way (at least in the Apple world)

But they aren't.

When I open 10 safari tabs on my computer, they all stay loaded. When I do so on my iPad, they don't.

Rick Erickson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1261856#Comment_1261856

But they aren't.

When I open 10 safari tabs on my computer, they all stay loaded. When I do so on my iPad, they don't.

... and I'm not sure how this impacts Logos' ability to store/index local files for use in 'offline' mode. How an OS manages it's resources has very little to do with the 'business' functionality of an application. And your tabs ARE loaded - just serialized in a way to manage the resources of the hardware more efficiently. Your laptop does this too - just in a different way.

With my iPad I can:

Do extreme 4K+ video editing using Davinci Resolve or Final Cut Pro

Perform very high end photo editing using Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.

Play intense games with absurd OS and hardware demands

Record/produce/mix an entire music 'album' using the likes of Logic Pro, Garage Band, etc.

.. and on and on [:)]

Are we really ready to say that Logos can't offer 'offline mobile' functionality because the iPad isn't ready for it? When it comes down to it - Logos is a document management application (mostly text based) and search engine with a very light-weight UI (according to today's standards).

I love my Logos software - use it every day. I jumped from Olive Tree to Logos for the additional features (save the mobile), and now performance it offers. But to NOT expect Logos to function in an 'offline mobile' mode because our mobile devices are so different from a desktop/laptop computer sitting in a home is not right. It's not a device/hardware/OS issue. It's a company/roadmap/priority issue. I'm not bashing Faithlife as a company. They chose/prioritize what they think is important to their software and customers. I just feel they (up until now) have drastically underestimated this use case. And I didn't start this thread so I don't think I'm the only one [:)]

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1261833#Comment_1261833

... remembering that if you are on WiFi or Cellular additional resources can be downloaded quite quickly should they be needed.

Well, that was a good laugh. Even the Mac version, once you're 'downloading' resources, has a hard time giving up, when the connection is limited (gazillions of tourists probably using their Logos mobiles). The right-click 'stop it!' does nothing.

But returning to the OP, you're right. FL 'could' if they wanted. They don't want to. The statement a few seasons back, was the mobile is an extra freeby (my word choice, their concept). Kind of like the 4th tire on your car.

David Wanat

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1261867#Comment_1261867

In this debate, I think that, before we play the “FL could but doesn’t want to“ card, we need to ask some things.

what are the resources of one’s tablet? (My iPad Air 3 has ~2.84gb of memory.)
how much memory will an improved mobile app need?
Given the different tablets out there, will some be unable to use this new and improved version?

Now I’d love offline searching. But not if it crashes because of a lack of memory in my tablet. (Final Draft crashes all the time on my tablet, for example).

Rick Erickson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1261868#Comment_1261868

Now I’d love offline searching. But not if it crashes because of a lack of memory in my tablet. (Final Draft crashes all the time on my tablet, for example).

I don't discount these concerns at all. They are very real to a lot of people. But the same problem exists for a Desktop/Laptop as well. Using Logos on an 'older' desktop/laptop will bog it down in a hurry.

Logos mobile is a lightweight UI application with the potential of managing a ton of documents with a small memory footprint - at least the type of memory you are referring to. It really should handle the 'best of both worlds'. The requested features the OP posted shouldn't require a ton more memory. And, if your device can't handle 'full mobile' offline support then it shouldn't have to. You can download 'only' the desired documents you do today. However, if you want your entire library (or at least a good portion of it) you should be able to. And, a lot of this hardware demand can be alleviated by a good indexing approach. The documents aren't loaded in volatile memory RAM (that you bring up above). They are stored locally on the hard drive and loaded as needed. A typical use case isn't to load up tabs with hundreds of files - thus impacting the memory. However, a use case is to search (using a good index) all locally stored files and then loading the selected one(s) as needed. This shouldn't take up a lot of memory.

And, unfortunately these hardware/software companies that produce these devices and OS's force obsolescence so it can be a challenge to leverage any technology today without staying somewhat current.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1261868#Comment_1261868

In this debate, I think that, before we play the “FL could but doesn’t want to“ card, we need to ask some things.l

David, there's several ways to do search support. Try out Accordance. Personally, I don't need offline, beyond tag/collection support ... which they don't want to do. I'm thinking another dataset is needed.