Logos - Please invest more in the mobile apps

A competitor just released their new 5.0 iPad app before Christmas. It features split screen reading, ability to highlight, bookmark and take notes, a comprehensive Resource Guide (similar to our Passage Guide) complete with sections for Biblical People, Biblical Places, maps, images, and more -- with all of these features functional while offline!

I hope some of these features and more enhanced offline use are in the not-too-distant roadmap of Logos for iOS.

I take the train to work everyday, and I would say 90% of the people spend their time on the train and waiting for the train using a mobile device (smart phones, eReaders, iPads). (The other 10% are reading the free newspaper they pick up from the train station.)

Not only will mobile Bible apps be useful to believers, they will also be a great way to bring God's word to the masses who spend time commuting on public transportation every day.

I sincerely hope that Logos will invest more heavily on mobile platforms, triple or quadruple your mobile app staff, and accelerate the rollout of your mobile strategy/roadmap - iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry, Kindle, etc.

Thanks,
Peter

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Comments

Randall Hartman

[Y]

Mark Barnes

I have to concur with that. The resource guide is magnificent. Unfortunately it's hard to imagine how this could be achieved with Logos (it's BibleReader's relatively small library that makes it possible). OliveTree's programmers have done a brilliant job with the Resource Guide, Logos' programmers will need to be doubly-brilliant if we're to get something comparable. Let's hope they're up to the challenge!

Timothy Ha

Perhaps we should tell Apple to sponsor Logos, because more iPads will be sold.

I am waiting for Logos to grow to justify an iPad purchase.

Robert Mullen

I have to concur with that. The resource guide is magnificent. Unfortunately it's hard to imagine how this could be achieved with Logos (it's BibleReader's relatively small library that makes it possible). OliveTree's programmers have done a brilliant job with the Resource Guide, Logos' programmers will need to be doubly-brilliant if we're to get something comparable. Let's hope they're up to the challenge!

That is spiffy but am I the only one who thinks it looks very similar to the desktop Passage Guide in L4? I think the Logos team can do better but am growing a little impatient myself. Lets see what 1.6.0 brings.

Perhaps we should tell Apple to sponsor Logos, because more iPads will be sold.

I was going to suggest that Bob acquire Olivetree, but that would be too controversial... [:#]

Randall Hartman

More than anything else regarding my IPAD app I want/need/desire/would-kill-for a button to click that will download ALL of my available resources. This is why I got the 64mg.

[8-|]

... a button to click that will download ALL of my available resources.

Yes! I'm hoping that the "bulk download" feature on the app's Home Page when we upgraded to 1.5.1 can be expanded to allow downloading of all our resources with the click of a button.

Please, Logos?

tjebme

+1 Agree Peter.

Jacob Hantla

agree. Need much more work, much quicker in mobile web. It is the way that Logos will likely be able to reach the masses even more effectively than with their desktop software. Gotta get in and get people before they become too heavily invested in another platform.

Ron Barry

That Olivetree app is very slick - but we need to realize that IS their niche market...mobile apps. I feel bad for the folks at Logos whose primary product is meant for computer use. Now everyone will be comparing each platform to various company's specialties. It's a no-win situation. Now that I said that - I hope and pray that Logos develops an iPad app that is as slick as the "other one." I hate duplicating software across platforms.

Kurt Trucksess

I completely agree. Logos progress in iOS is very slow. This needs attention. Logos, an otherwise first rate program, is falling behind.

Bob, beef up the team. Keep up the good work guys.

Mark Barnes

Logos progress in iOS is very slow. This needs attention. Logos, an otherwise first rate program, is falling behind.

Logos did indicate several months ago that progress would be slow as they did some major 'behind the scenes' changes for 1.5. Now that's done, we should see development speed up.

Logan Hall

I have to concur with that. The resource guide is magnificent. Unfortunately it's hard to imagine how this could be achieved with Logos (it's BibleReader's relatively small library that makes it possible). OliveTree's programmers have done a brilliant job with the Resource Guide, Logos' programmers will need to be doubly-brilliant if we're to get something comparable. Let's hope they're up to the challenge!

[Y] +1 Wow! Have to also agree. The resource guide is an amazing step forward in iOS Bible software.

As a new owner of Accordance, waiting for them to unveil their upcoming iOS release... should be any day now. Brimming with anticipation! Sure hope Logos follows suite - love you guys, just think (from my limited perspective) you bit off more than you can chew in the last year or so and as a result have what some would view as significant deficiencies across your product line. Having spent many years in software design & dev, I'd encourage you to shelf some projects and focus resources on core products. If you don't, I would imagine that you will lose market share. But what do i know. [:D]

Bob Pritchett

Wow... how are we supposed to follow all this advice? :-)

We need to both A) spiff up our mobile solutions (while moving away from the web, which is what enables them to use your desktop data files!) and drop some products so we can focus on a few core products.

We could drop mobile completely, and put all our energy on optimizing the Mac product. Or we could drop the desktop, and go all mobile? (And is that iOS we should focus on? There's another thread where people are pleading for Android support!)

Alas, I think that we'd fail to get consensus on a course of action...

Mobile started for us as a "free add-on". It was hard to justify a big team since there's literally no revenue attached to it -- the app is free. Yes, some people do buy the desktop software so they can use the books on the mobile device, but it's just a small fraction of our customers (and thus, of our revenue).

It's clear mobile is becoming very popular, and we hope to devote more resources to it in the future. But it's not clear that mobile-oriented customers buy the same quantity (or type) of books, or that the revenue from a mobile focus -- where it's fewer books being read through, instead of larger libraries being searched/studied -- could support our organization.

Of course, these are our problems to figure out, and we're working on it. My personal preference is that you'd all stop chasing new platforms, and we could go back a few years in time to when there was one dominant platform that we could focus all of our software development on. Yes, I know the iPhones, iPads, Androids, and Mac's are cool and shiny -- I've got them too! -- but now we're expected to deliver the same app / functionality / interface / performance on a half-dozen very different platforms.

It's like the 1980's all over again. :-)

Yes, in the short term I believe we could deliver things faster if we stayed focused on one platform. But in the long term, as you change platforms (and use multiple platforms in your daily life) I think you'll be glad that Logos is making the (slower) investment in being a true cross platform "buy once, read anywhere" solution.

Logan Hall

Mobile started for us as a "free add-on". It was hard to justify a big team since there's literally no revenue attached to it -- the app is free. Yes, some people do buy the desktop software so they can use the books on the mobile device, but it's just a small fraction of our customers (and thus, of our revenue).

Hi Bob,

I appreciate your reply and would ask your forgiveness if I stepped out of line with the advice. I have some appreciation of how difficult it can be - having managed multiple development efforts across product lines for a number of years in the past. You might very well be correct, and I might be part of a small minority that invested heavily in Logos resources over the past year or so based on what I viewed as a top priority "buy once, read anywhere". For what it's worth, I never viewed the iOS app as a "free add-on", it was part of my overall motivation to invest (I was investing in a cloud, not any one platform) :-) It remains a top priority for me and so I hope you can appreciate the frustration that it causes having invested heavily in "buy once, read anywhere" when I see slick apps like BibleReader 5. As far as advice, you know your customers best so I will leave the future management of Logos to you. God bless you brother, I am praying for you and everyone at Logos.

I pray you have a restful week filled with the wisdom of the Lord,

Ray

Hi Bob,

As always, thank you for your reply.

Wow... how are we supposed to follow all this advice? :-)

We need to both A) spiff up our mobile solutions (while moving away from the web, which is what enables them to use your desktop data files!) and drop some products so we can focus on a few core products.

We could drop mobile completely, and put all our energy on optimizing the Mac product. Or we could drop the desktop, and go all mobile? (And is that iOS we should focus on? There's another thread where people are pleading for Android support!)

The original request in my original post was to ask you to increase your investment and commitment to mobile platforms. With the digital world moving into diverse platforms (again), I don't think it's wise for you to drop anything. I don't see any of your platform offerings (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android) that can be dropped.

Mobile started for us as a "free add-on". It was hard to justify a big team since there's literally no revenue attached to it -- the app is free.

By the same token you can also say that the Windows and Mac apps themselves (not the resources) are offered for free. Does that mean that you shouldn't invest in those apps and platforms?

Yes, some people do buy the desktop software so they can use the books on the mobile device, but it's just a small fraction of our customers (and thus, of our revenue).

It's clear mobile is becoming very popular, and we hope to devote more resources to it in the future. But it's not clear that mobile-oriented customers buy the same quantity (or type) of books, or that the revenue from a mobile focus -- where it's fewer books being read through, instead of larger libraries being searched/studied -- could support our organization.

I think this is a chicken-and-egg problem. The observations you made above (assuming they are accurate and fact-based) are influenced by the following factors:

1) The fact that a good percentage of the books we purchase from Logos are NOT available on mobile devices -- this makes me think twice before puchasing any new resources from you, because on a typical day I spend more time using the iPad app than the PC to do my study.

2) It's true that people typically use their mobile devices more for reading than searching and researching, but it is also true that if searching and research functions are available offline on the iOS, more people (including myself) would be doing that.

By having some key resources not available on mobile devices (while they are widely available from other vendors), and by severely limiting what can be done on the iOS devices while offline, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that people are not buying more resources for research and study use on the mobile devices.

Of course, these are our problems to figure out, and we're working on it. My personal preference is that you'd all stop chasing new platforms, and we could go back a few years in time to when there was one dominant platform that we could focus all of our software development on. Yes, I know the iPhones, iPads, Androids, and Mac's are cool and shiny -- I've got them too! -- but now we're expected to deliver the same app / functionality / interface / performance on a half-dozen very different platforms.

I wasn't sure if this was an attempt at humor or a complaint, but I assume you understand that the current trend toward mobile and toward multi-platform is not going to change or slow down any time soon. I know this is good for innovation and for consumers, but it is not good for us software developers (yes, I'm in application development also). See John Fidel's article: http://www.bsreview.org/index.php?modulo=Articles&id=14

Regardless of how you feel about these current digital trends, I hope the recent releases and advances by Olive Tree and Accordance on the iOS platform will give Logos a new incentive to double up your effort on mobile platforms.

I want to stay loyal to Logos on all platforms (and not have to repurchase similar resources all over again), but it's hard not to notice the advances made by the competition while the Logos iOS app is SO FAR BEHIND and still lacking some of the most basic features expected of a Bible study app -- note taking, highlighting, split windows, copy and paste, offline search, sync with desktop app, etc.

It is frustrating not because we are demanding users, but because we are loyal fans!

Thanks for listening, and have a blessed 2011!

Peter

P.S. BTW, seriously Bob, if it's been hard to focus on so many different platforms (at least that's the impression I'm getting from your post), have you considered partnering with or even acquiring a dedicated mobile software vendor to gain more progress and velocity on mobile?

John Fidel

Logos iOS app is SO FAR BEHIND and still lacking some of the most basic features expected of a Bible study app -- note taking, highlighting, split windows, copy and paste, offline search, sync with desktop app, etc.

Hi Peter,

I view Logos as one of the innovators in the market place. They drive the market more than respond to it, sometimes more quickly than they may be able to keep up with. They were one of the first desktop developers to release an iPhone/Pod/Pad app. What most developers are finding out is that customers want more features in their mobile apps, and they want it now. As to being behind in the features you mentioned, you are correct that Logos does not currently offer them. However, what they do offer is still pretty remarkable.. thousands of resources that do not have to be purchased again; Passage Guide; Bible Word Study; Cited by search, etc.. If you read the forums and reviews of the other developers, you will find their customers are making suggestions for improvements as well.. customers just expect more.

When it comes to iApps, the cost is up front for the developer. iApp customers are not always the ones that will spend hundreds or more on additional resources, as so much is free or 99 cents. A company cannot make up their cost on volume when the app and some useful content is free. The app must generate sales of resources or support the sale of resources in the desktop apps. I think this will be the case over time.

The various developers mentioned in this post also focus on what they feel is important to their customers be it searching or note/highlighing or library integration with a limited number or resources or making thousands of resources available on multiple platforms. There will be room for developers to excel in the markets they define, but probably not in every market..

The technology behind this software is changing at such a rapid pace.. that is the point that Bob was making.. developers need to pick their markets and do what they do in that market really well.. that is the point you and others are making.. I am confident that the best of these developers will find the balance between the two.

Happy New Year!

Robert Mullen

Good points all. I also feel Logos is an innovator not a follower of trends. I did look closely at Accordance before purchasing Logos and was underwhelmed by the User Interface and confused by the pricing scheme. L4 has consistently changed for the better the way I interact with my Bible and resources. I do think iPad and potentially Android devices are going to be game changers in this space. I belong to a conservative church and the number of people following the service on iPads, iPhones or other devices is growing. This trend is not going to change. I think we are seeing a permanent segmentation of the market that is going to be particularly meaningful to Bible believing Christians. We are a people of the book and the eReader feature of these devices just begs to be expanded. The fact that I can follow along with my pastor's sermon, flip over to a Greek text, and look up the morphological information at a tap is transformational. Unfortunately the process is still kludgy (split screen would help). a little slow (offline is helping), and does not allow markup. I believe these things will come and more. As an application developer I feel for Bob. We have supported multiple platforms too and it is a royal pain. We have a major investment in Windows Mobile that appears to be at risk given the rise of iOS and Android. It is a tough new world and a guy like Bob has to be careful with the investments made. That said, iOS is the clear leader and the competition is quite far in the lead. If it were me I would add a couple resources pretty quickly. iOS development is different but is not that hard (I have done it) and I think a team of 3 should be able to get the APP up to speed pretty quick at which time one developer should be able to keep up.

Bob Pritchett

The original request in my original post was to ask you to increase your investment and commitment to mobile platforms. With the digital world moving into diverse platforms (again), I don't think it's wise for you to drop anything. I don't see any of your platform offerings (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android) that can be dropped.

I agree, and we don't plan to drop any platform. We plan to expand platform support.

I wasn't sure if this was an attempt at humor or a complaint,

I was trying to be funny. :-)

it's hard not to notice the advances made by the competition while the Logos iOS app is SO FAR BEHIND and still lacking some of the most basic features expected of a Bible study app -- note taking, highlighting, split windows, copy and paste, offline search, sync with desktop app, etc.

I disagree with the assessment that we're behind: for over a year we've offered 4,000+ books on mobile -- way ahead of any mobile competitors. We also offered reverse interlinear lookup, Passage Guide, Bible Word Study Guide, and Text Comparison. I think that's way out in front. (I think it was just in the last month that OliveTree made a big leap, and the Accordance app just shipped. Who are we so far behind?)

I'm guessing, though, that this is another case of "you're way behind in the features _I_ want." <smile> Which is, of course, a completely legitimate complaint.

Note-taking, highlighting, copy and paste, offline search: These are really all related. They all require the full book offline (or "character count compatibility" with the desktop books, which would be harder). It's a bit more difficult for us, since we're guessing you want those notes and highlights to work the same on mobile and desktop (a constraint mobile-only products don't have). The good news is, v1.5 of our iOS app -- just released weeks ago -- puts our desktop display engine on iOS devices. This enables all these things at once, though we still have some code to write. (We're re-writing our sync framework -- which notes and highlights will require -- to be more efficient and use less bandwidth, as well as to be organized differently, to fit mobile devices. Again, a constraint that other products don't have, but which will pay off in better functionality. They don't have a desktop version.)

Split-windows: In beta, coming soon.

Sync with desktop app: We already do this for your library and reading plans and favorites; coming soon for notes, highlights, etc. as described above.

P.S. BTW, seriously Bob, if it's been hard to focus on so many different platforms (at least that's the impression I'm getting from your post), have you considered partnering with or even acquiring a dedicated mobile software vendor to gain more progress and velocity on mobile?

Sure sounds easy, doesn't it? Except the problem isn't getting any old notes or highlighting on the iPhone. We could do that easily. The problem is getting YOUR notes and highlighting -- the ones in your desktop software, with rich-text formatting, complicated custom highlighter styles with inline graphics, etc. -- on the iPhone, and in complete synchronization, so that changes on one device show up on the other.

Acquiring another mobile package would make this a big mess; their existing note system wouldn't be compatible with our notes, the way they calculate positions in ebooks wouldn't match how the desktop does, their display engine probably doesn't do triple-wavy-line underlining like our highlighting system, etc. And we'd probably be expected not only to make it match our desktop, but to somehow preserve and migrate their existing users' data to our system without losing or breaking anything.

Simple example: Most notes on ebooks/mobile devices are plaintext. If you have a desktop note with lots of rich-text formatting, and open it on the iPhone, do we show it as plain text or rich-text? Do we put a rich-text toolbar onto the iPhone and write a whole new editor (since the iPhone doesn't have built-in rich-text editor like desktop OS's do). That's a big job. So we could show your note in plain text, though it's rich-text underneath. But then what happens if you edit it on the iPhone? Does the newer plain text version overwrite the rich-text version? Do we try to map, character by character, your plain text edits into the rich-text data stream? Again, problems we can solve, but time-consuming...

Fundamentally, I get the point: the world's moving mobile, and many of our users are switching to mobile as a "primary" platform. And theoretically we can deliver a strong, free mobile engine the way we deliver a strong, free desktop engine. But A) that takes time, it's very recent, and you who care are on the leading edge -- the "people who pay the bills" aren't all there yet.

And C), i'm guessing that despite the anxiousness to get a solution soon, long-term you'll be glad we did it right. We're working on it. :-)

-- Bob

Dear Bob,

As always, thanks for your prompt and thoughtful response.

I certainly wasn't trying to minimize or trivialize the challenges you and your company face. It is a very complex and rapidly-changing digital world out there, and I thank you for doing so much to try to stay ahead.

Just one point of clarification -- when I said the Logos iOS app was "far behind", I was referring to the lack of what I'd consider some "basic" features like notes, highlighting, split windows, offline search, etc, that even most of the free alternatives offer. I'm glad to hear that most of these missing features are forthcoming soon.

I'll be more patient and be thankful for what Logos already does offer today.

Thanks again, and may God bless you and the Logos team!

Peter

Nick Clark

Bob,

Three thoughts from your reply:

1. AWSOME!

2. I am thrilled to see that you have obviously listened to your customers as it appears that you are working on most of the "_I_ want" features that have been mentioned and which I personally consider to be necessary before It will fit the use cases I hope it will fill.

3. I, for one, am glad that you are not taking the fast road. Not that I don't want to see this stuff soon, but because I would be even more frustrated if you rushed to get, say, highlighing out, but only allowed certain types of highlights or underlining or it didn't sync with what I did that morning on my PC or Mac. I'm glad to see that you are determined to do it the right way, not just so you can say I have feature x or y.

I am in the younger crowd ( we'll just say the 'under 30' crowd ) that has learned to use electronics to replace just about everything. Everything that is except our physical Bible (not that I would ever not own a physical copy somewhere in my home). Logos has put that possibility so close I can almost taste it. With the dawn of tablets like the IPad and soon to come Android tablets, the need to carry multiple books to a group study session or to church has vanished; provided companies like Logos furnish the software.

You have painted a very bright future for us, thank you and may God continue to bless your efforts.

Mark Barnes

We're re-writing our sync framework -- which notes and highlights will require -- to be more efficient and use less bandwidth, as well as to be organized differently, to fit mobile devices.

This is great news. Syncing entire note files instead of individual notes is a big problem on the desktop.

Fundamentally, I get the point

I never doubted it. But thanks for outlining the challenges. You've convinced me it's worth waiting (and I'm sure you'll forgive me if I occasionally open Bible Reader in the meantime!).

John A. Murphy, Jr.

Bob,

We appreciate your dilemma. We know that you will never please all of us, and if you were trying to please just one segment you'd end up with a product that was only good for them. So, here are a couple of my praises:

1) You can turn on headers/footers in the mobile app (thus giving me the page number.

2) That I can highlight in LOGOS in my resources.

3) I can see the page numbers in LOGOS on my computer (something that doesn't happen in my Kindle reading - I just get a locational reference number).

The challenge you have is that you've created such an amazing product in LOGOS that people don't want to be separated from it. I for one have read several books in my library with the mobile app and am glad that I was able to do so. The books available in my library were my justification for buying my iPad. As you continue to glean the feedback I'm sure that more and more features will come to both platforms, and I look forward to seeing them. In the mean time, I praise God that I no longer sit with 10-20 books open scattered around my desk while doing biblical research.

As a consumer I know that when something is easy to use and so convenient, I often forget how difficult it was to make it that way. Thanks for all your hard work.[:D]

Blessings to you and you're entire staff!

Pastor John Murphy

R. Mansfield

3) I can see the page numbers in LOGOS on my computer (something that doesn't happen in my Kindle reading - I just get a locational reference number).

Speaking of which, Amazon has released Kindle beta 3.1 (3rd generation Kindle device only right now) that includes page numbers. Now, both the page number and location numbers appear at the bottom of the screen.