*********** 10 was released for Mac and all I can say is WOW!! An app that runs like a Mac app should and man did they make some nice improvements appearance and operation. Look out Logos it's also coming to Windows in 2013.
Yep, Incredible release!!!!
Logos folk? You there? We are going to have to have a response here, please. Teasers. Anything?
Teasers. Anything?
This thread is referring to a program by another company. I doubt Logos would have much to add. I appreciate the information about the upgrade to that other Mac bible program. My initial experience was a beachball and crash when trying to open the library (seems to be working OK after restarting). Their company forums noted some bugs and promised an bug fix release real soon. Nice to know that this is the way real mac programs are supposed to work[:P]. (sorry, I couldn't resist the sarcasm). Old time Mac fans tend to be somewhat odd (almost religious) when it comes their computer of choice. I tend to take the hyperbola with a grain of salt.(Disclaimer, I'm writing this on a Macbook Pro).
PS. Nice to see this coming to windows. I wonder if George would have a comment about that (ie something about real computers [:S])
What I'm saying is...I hope the guys in the Flatiron building are pulling an all-nighter, because the competition is getting way more competitive. Both of the other cutting-edge alternatives have released major upgrades as Logos 4 has made its way to 4.5c SR-4. This is 2 full upgrades for the mac guys. What's in store for those of us who are thousands of dollars into L4? What's on the plate? It's clear that the guys from cutting-edge competitor for Mac have spent a lot of time looking at L4. A nice word (call it hand-holding) would be nice from the L4 team. Where are we on new features? What is on the agenda? etc.
This competitor's program is a long overdue break from an ancient code base they have been updating since System 7. (similar to what Logos did with L4). I'm not sure what you mean by the other alternative but if it is the one that also upgraded to Version 10 they still don't have a native mac version (wine and X11 don't count) or an iPad version that is even close to what Logos has. I'd like to see Logos reach feature parity and continue to improve performance with the current code base. I did notice that the other program doesn't have full screen support which is something that Mac users have complained about with Logos (I'd love to see this feature added to Logos). Besides, nobody has the number or quality of resources Logos has. Until that happens there really is no competition for Logos outside or original language studies. ( I don't mean to to denigrate that other program I do have a significant investment in that program because of the textual criticism and original language tools)
I'm interested in knowing the competitor. Would someone send me a message and let me know the name. Thanks!
It's Accordance. There's no rules against mentioning competitors (Logos does ask that we don't promote competitors though--keep that in mind). I think it looks more like Logos now.
Yes, it looks very nice, very modern and is extremely fast. Only one real bug and the workaround for it was found in min. Logos does still have more resources so I will still use both programs. Accordance for all my heavy lifting with greek and hebrew and search work. Logos as a "reader" for the other resources I need. One for speed, one for read. I am glad to have both, wish it could be "all in one" but don't think that is ever really going to be a reality as everything today is so specialized. It was a great rollout for them though, huge upgrade, servers were hammered but min. problems. I thought they did really well. Don't know why someone here was talking negatively about them having "old code" , been an Accordance user a long time, never had any real problems and it's always been screaming fast. It's just different software: They specialize in Original Language work , Logos specializes in Resources. I for one need both of them. If Logos does well, we all benefit, both Logos customers and everyone else. If Accordance does well, we all benefit, Accordance customers and everyone else. Each one's success makes everyone else better, as each one advances, we all benefit . I can remember when Biblical Software was just a baby, I "know" we have all benefited from each companies advances. So, well done Accordance, thanks for making everyones future Biblical Software better, including Logos.
Nice to know that this is the way real mac programs are supposed to work. (sorry, I couldn't resist the sarcasm).
Having been an early adopter of the Mac OS (June 84), I am always amused by comments about applications being "Mac-like" or "the way a Mac app should work". In the early days of L4, Windows users complained that it was not "Windows-like".
Remember when you first paid for Logos 4? Who cared about beach balls we didn't even have a complete working program for months and now years down the road we're still waiting for completion and promised performance. A beach ball, reboot and and bug fix promise from a company that follows through on it's promises and you want to be sarcastic. Here's my opinion, stick with Logos, you'll be much happier.
I'm with you Charles. I have a significant investment with Logos also that goes back many years, hence my dissatisfaction with the current mess called Logos 4, but they do offer many interesting library resources in community pricing that are hard to pass up and make Logos a great supplemental product for research and reading. There's nothing wrong with having more than one tool in the toolbox as long as one can afford the investment.
News like this worries me, in that Iwonder how long Logos can sustain.
If I remember Bob's wordscorrectly, L4 was built on a platform that would run well onanticipated future technology (Moore's Law), and he was surprisedthat technology reversed itself (low processor speed and low ram onnetbooks and low end laptops). But here we are seeing other competingproducts matching L4's features, and outmatching its speedexponentially on current hardware.
I have a substantial investment in L4,and I worry that unless L4 (or 5) is able to run competitively on thecomputers that the majority can afford, there is a real chance thatLogos will lose its sustainable viability.
Having read the marketing hype, it appears that Accordance 10 has borrowed heavily from Logos 4. Like previous versions, it will do some things better than Logos—a far, far superior Atlas module, better time lines, speed. But as poor as L4 Notes feature operates, it is still better than the Accordance arrangement. Accordance user modules were very poorly done in previous versions. I created one and was extremely dissatisfied with the cumbersome process. This was officially stated as a deliberate design decision. Unless this new version has made drastic improvements, it will be no competition for L4 Personal Books.
Having said all that, I will likely upgrade to Accordance 10, and may even use it more than I have used version 9. BTW, the minimum upgrade to the Starter Package cost the same as a new user purchase. The marketing blurb promised that you get to keep your previous resources. There is a good price break for higher packages, however.
I still cannot see any scenario in which I will replace L4 as my primary Bible study application. I also note that the original poster in this thread has a history of harsh criticism of L4, so I would take his comments with a grain of salt.
I don't want anyone to think of my participation in this thread as negative. I use logos every day. It hardly goes off on my mac. My hope is that Logos does the same thing that Accordance has obviously done: look at the competition and raise the bar. It is an exciting opportunity for any cutting-edge, tech driven company. They know where the competition is, and have a good idea what needs to be done to take their product beyond the current level of the competition. BMW's slogan "the ultimate driving machine." Is not just aimed at the potential consumer, but at Mercedes Benz. "The best, or nothing.", Mercedes, slogan likewise throws the gauntlet down to BMW. The consumer benefits from the competition. If BMW settles for "The Pen-ultimate driving machine" The game is up and a lot of folk switch platforms. Logos claims to be the best. Many of us have voted with our dollars. Now it is for Logos to "re-imagine Bible study; again."
..... Logos claims to be the best. Many of us have voted with our dollars. Now it is for Logos to "re-imagine Bible study; again."
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Accordance has already issued 10.01 to fix a couple glitches. Thats pretty fast, new version is not three days old yet.
It does look interesting and yes it seems very fast. For me, the main deciding factor is what resources are available. There are so many choices in terms of commentaries and other resources in Logos which Accordance can't really match. Also the prices are very competitive.
On the negative side, I just wish that the mac version was faster, and a bit more reliable (I still sometimes get unexplained crashes).
I do think the Logos guys do great work, but I agree they are diversifying quite a bit with Faithlife and Vyrso, I just hope the rest of the products don't suffer as a result.
Thanks Jack, love you too bro!!
I guess I just don't like investing in a promise that never gets fulfilled. How many years has it been now and we still don't have the full product we were sold? Would you be so content if you bought a car based upon advertising hype and sales promises only to find out the car you were sold is not the car you were promised? Come's with A/C, that's in a future release, Gets 40 miles/gallon - 20 right now but you'll see 40 in a future release. Built in GPS - that's complete in the other model but we're working to get it going in this one, maybe by end of year. I don't think you'd be too happy especially after laying out a significant amount of cash for your new purchase.
But, down at the other dealer is a nice model, may not have all the bells and whistles of your newly purchased model but everything it does have works as promised and when there is a problem instead of more promises you get results. But, hey your model looks nice, has great specs that beats the competition, but the reality is it doesn't live up to specs but that's OK the potential is there and the salesman told me they're working hard on it and I should have the car I purchased soon or at least in next years model.
So, I wonder Jack, why would I be so critical, because I like to or is it because I'm tired of all the unfulfilled promises from a company and product that was once great?
I guess I just don't like investing in a promise that never gets fulfilled. How many years has it been now and we still don't have the full product we were sold?
Given that 30th October will be the third anniversary of my upgrade to Version 4 it would be nice to see:
Personally I think that three years of waiting is long enough.
Once all of the features are completed, I personally would like to see some significant investement in improving performance because SSD and 8GB of RAM seems a bit excessive to me. Areas that need focus are:
Until this is all done I don't really care about what the competitors are offering because the reality is I will not be changing from Logos because I have too much invested to start over with another product. My concern is that with the recent announcement from a major competitor Logos will now focus on a raft of new and/or enhanced features to compete for new customers leaving the existing customer base waiting for the missing features. I guess the good news is that if the competitor really is a lot faster then Logos will have to do something to improve performance.
The days when I could consider taking my business elsewhere are long gone so, for better or worse, I'll be using Logos for the foreseeable future and continuing to invest. Somewhere on this journey I hope that I will once again be a happy Logos user rather than one who is becoming increasingly disgruntled and resigned to being 'locked in'.
Given that 30th October will be the third anniversary of my upgrade to Version 4 it would be nice to see: As many of the as yet missing features completed by that date as possible. A commitment from Logos with dates for any features they cannot deliver by that date.
We've been working hard on "missing" features. After 4.6 goes live (it's in beta now) I believe the only significant missing feature will be Sermon File. If there's anything else I'm forgetting, please remind me.
Areas that need focus are: Notes, is it really all down to WPF? Displaying search results - forget the search complete in .nn seconds for me it is not over until the results are displayed.
Areas that need focus are:
Yes, it is WPF's fault on Windows. (The notes typing performance.) And the notes issues on Mac relate to the differences in the native text editor there. We've been addressing many notes functionality issues already -- like the new "split" view in 4.6 beta.
To address notes typing performance we are turning our display engine into an editor. This is a massive project that someone has already been working on for months. We hope this will address the performance issues when typing, but we won't know how much better it is until we're a little further along and can run some comparison tests. The plan is to release this in an upcoming beta, though I can't yet say when.
Displaying search results is something of a WPF issue, too. I believe you'll find the Bible search results (in grid format) are the fastest to display. That's because they aren't shown as a page full of WPF text objects, but rather are "painted" onto a single display surface. This is much more difficult than using the built-in layout features, and requires our doing all the layout ourselves, but it's faster. Hand-coding these optimized displays is very time-consuming, but may be our best solution. (Though we're hoping new versions of .NET may help here; I'm not sure yet.)
After 4.6 goes live (it's in beta now) I believe the only significant missing feature will be Sermon File. If there's anything else I'm forgetting, please remind me.
Thanks for taking time to respond, as far as I know it is only the Sermon File Addon that is left, it would be good if a working version of this was available before the XP version freeze. I'm sure that you have already given this some thought as there is bound to be at least one person out there who is currently on XP and is waiting for the Sermon File Add On....
Yes, it is WPF's fault on Windows. (The notes typing performance.)
Displaying search results is something of a WPF issue, too.
If it's any consolation I agree with you that the person who never made a mistake never made anything and that with hindsight I'm sure Logos 4 would be a WPF free zone. In fairness the search display issue is more one of perception than real performance as the screen becomes 'active' fairly quickly the only issue then is the amount of resource that is consumed in the 'background' as the display layout is being built as I find that when I click a link the system is not that responsive and the resource takes a while to open. Is there anyway that the on going screen build can be made a lower priority so that the user response is faster?
Also, I think that the visual queues on the screen are a bit misleading and I have to remind myself that I don't have to wait for the moving squares to stop. I suspect that many new users wait for the squares to stop before they start using the results.
So I guess what I'm saying is that the slow build may be less of an issue than the perception that it creates (if that makes sense).
