Fully offline app

The Ipad uses an app to give you most of your books, but not all... yes it uses an app, so you are not running logos 4 on your ipad... logos 4 itself will only run on window, Mac, or linux and not the IOS.  instead, you download the app and you get some of the functionality.  For some reason there is a lot of confusion on this forum by several people that think that they will have logos on Idevice... they will have access to a free app that they can download to their idevice and allow them to read and do some online work, but it is mostly reading at this time.  There are some apps out there that will allow you to remotely control your pc or mac from your Idevice, but it is still not the logos 4 software running on the Idevice.  I hope that this helps to clear things up a bit... 

Wait a minute...

In order to fully use the L4 software, one has to have a PC/Mac?  Some of us are 'road warriors' who spend tremendous amounts of time in airplanes or areas where there may not be great web access (or none at all).

I had hoped that I could have everything in both the Mac and iPad so that I could easily and interchangeably work with either without any degradation of functionality...  Not so?

What's your biggest "offline scenario"? Flying? Poor internet access in certain places?

My biggest problem is poor internet access in many places (including church). It makes Logos completely unusable because the app thinks there's an internet connection and waits for data which never comes or only comes horribly slowly. For Logos to work in these situations, then:

• I need to be able to switch it into offline mode, without switching my whole phone into flight mode.
• Or, and this would be much better, the app needs to do its internet stuff in the background, and allow me to continue to use the device in the meantime (e.g. show me offline resources in my library whilst downloading the list of online resources).

The biggest offline feature that I would like, and shouldn't require lots of computing power, is reverse interlinear lookup and the ability to filter my library.

The biggest offline feature that I would like, and shouldn't require lots of computing power, is reverse interlinear lookup and the ability to filter my library.

 

I agree!

Also Bible Word Study.

Hi Bob!

I also thank you for your response. I have to also add that this is SO very important for so many of us, and as you have pointed out in other threads, mobile computing is the direction towards which everything is moving. And that poses a significant problem for a really big chunk of Logos users, for whom higher speed Internet access just is not a reality, and more importantly, will not likely EVER be a reality.I work overseas, and the Internet is just garbage here... and that is definitely NOT going to change in my lifetime. Sometimes in America we forget how far the rest of the world lags behind. I can't even get decent hardwire connection here, much less wifi, etc. Even satellite is not an option... at any cost. I am basically restricted to dial up speeds AT BEST. Ever try to run Logos on dial-up? (most of the time my connection is at 11-16 kps).

But it isn't simply that I live in a backward country electronically speaking. I find the same issue when I travel. It just isn't realistic to think that a wireless connection is available wherever I go. In fact, most of the time even when I am traveling in the States, it is a challenge to have a wireless Internet connection when needed, or t least a decent enough one (see Mark's post), and if I am relying on Logos as my Bible software, I'm really stuck. This has happened to me countless times. 

It has to be a huge challenge for you guys to cram full functionality into an iOS device, and I know it will take time. But most of us aren't really looking for that. Just the basics. I know... how do we define what "just the basics" are? We all would have a different idea of what this include. Hopefully your task will get easier as hardware capabilities improve. But Internet access improvements aren't going to happen for most of the world to the extent that Logos is currently relying upon them. This means that many of us will need to switch to a different software platform which allows us to do our basic work completely offline. And I REALLY don't want to go that route. I have a LOT invested in Logos, and I don't want to have to invest in and use another company's softer for study purposes, and Logos as simply an e-reader. But that is where I fear things will head.

My sympathies to the challenges you are facing with this.

Does word lookup and word study require lot of computing power?

Word lookup shouldn't be too demanding as the data is all there in the Reverse Interlinear. Bible Word Study would be a lot more demanding as it brings in data from many different places.

I too would like to see more functionality - I don't need the full engine or database to work offline.  There are many instances where I don't have the internet at my disposal as I am not using a phone (I don't want to pay the data plans and I only see these going up in price).  Since i am dependent on wifi I have limited connectivity. 

I don't have wifi at the office, at church it is spotty and most folks don't have the password.  There are a lots of folks that do not have wifi at their home, if I was at a retreat center or conference there isn't usually wifi.  One could continue on with quite a list.

I have other ios bible study apps and they do a good job of using basic functionality such as linking text, notes, highlights, ease of location and searching.  I understand the challenge of porting functionality to something that is portable; it might be easier to start over with a new concept for those platforms rather then trying to shoehorn in the massive code set that exists  for Logos.

Thanks for what we have so far, it makes for an impressive library of books to read that you can carry around in your pocket.

What's your biggest "offline scenario"?

Hi Bob,

Thanks for asking.  For me personally (a train commuter), I would like to see:

1. Ability to search downloaded Bibles reliably and with reasonable response time (right now it's slow and results are sometimes wrong or missed) - including English and Chinese Bibles.

2. Better library filtering (e.g. filter out Perseus, filter by type such as commentaries, filter by my tags, filter by Vyrso, remember my last 10 library searches or filter queries).  If strong filtering capabilities can be combined with a bookshelf view, that's even better.

3. Ability to generate a mini-Passage Guide of some select sections with my downloaded resources, specifically, being able to have a list of offline commentaries that speak to a given scripture passage.

4. Notes and highlighting (I know they are coming, but have to mention them).  Ability to review my notes and highlights on a book, as in the Kindle app. (Most popular highlights as in Kindle will also be interesting, but that's icing.)

Thanks,

Peter