This morning, needing some inspiration to peel back the covers, I turned on my Logos "Bible" and a splash screen came up asking me to rate the app, to let the world know what a great company Logos is, or if there is an issue, to call customer service and let them know.
My mind was immediately flooded with several thoughts--not exactly what I had hoped would happen when I went to the "Bible"--and so chalk up another point for the neo-Luddites who encourage the use of an Old School hardcopy Bible for most uses. Nevertheless, I can do one better than calling customer service (who cannot seem to fix the problem with other divisions of the company), so here in written form are my thoughts about Logos and the Logos family of Apps:
1) First of all, it is Logos. It's not Libronix, nor Faithlife. It was originally Logos, that's how it is referred to by users, and I'm not sure what culture exists that thought another name change would be helpful, or why this is even something I care to or feel compelled to mention.
2) The Logos program for Desktops is amazing, wonderful, everything it is intended to be. Need I go on? Five stars!
3) Customer service is wonderful, helpful, friendly. The only time I have found them less than helpful is in resolving a library issue created by the Android App developers and marketing, which keeps trying to market the "King James" to me, which I have already purchased four or five times over in different packages. Four Stars!
4) In my experience and in my opinion, the Developers of the Android Apps are far less innovative, helpful, and responsive than the rest of the company. I don't know if I'm on the fringe, but since I always run a search before posting a new topic, I know from what has come up that I have not been alone in most of the the issues I've sought to address, including;
a) as mentioned above in #3, the apps take up my screen trying to get me to purchase the King James Version. I already own this 4 or 5 times over according to the product labeling. However, it is in my Library as "Authorized Version." It now works in my "Bible" app, even lets me download it, but not in Faithlife Study Bible (which I just removed for its own various issues--https://community.logos.com/forums/t/123807.aspx). As mentioned above, I called Customer Service to get the issue resolved so it would work smoothly and without this in my face each time I use certain apps, but it has not been resolved to my satisfaction.
b) the use of a common library directory all Logos-family apps can use to share downloaded resources to preserve precious storage and precious bandwidth for mobile devices. Several users have addressed this, preferring to load and use several apps for different purposes (Bible for Bible, Vyrso for novels, Noet for Classics, etc.) and as "innovative" as Development is they hold to some ethereal standard that, in effect, means we must use much more storage and bandwidth. Alternately, Development could have looked beyond the problem as expressed and found another solution: what these users want may not be more apps to save their place in different resources, they want something like the "Layouts" feature from their desktop. This way they save not only the storage space for the resources, but also for loading multiple apps onto their devices, and still have the functionality they desire. However, the Development department for the apps does not seem to be as innovative and helpful as the rest of the company.
c) highly destructive elements like allowing the innocuous swipe motion--which is how a user turns pages in this and other apps--to become a weapon of mass destruction in "Notes", immediately deleting them. In a low light situation, this user unknowingly flipped through several notes and did not see the "Note Deleted - Undo" message, and it took some doing to repair the losses. Also, it seems clear that the default would not be to immediately delete a note, but to first bring up a dialog like "Delete note? Are you sure?" and then follow with the "Note Deleted - Undo" dialog--and all this after some event quite different than the standard swipe motion. Development did respond by allowing us to navigate our other resources up and down instead of swipe, but the fact swipe is harmless and even easy to do accidentally should have meant it was fixed long ago when they were petitioned to fix it. Instead, I feel they play petty, passive-aggressive games with the expressed needs of the public, and seeking to "win" the argument in these ways, keeping the program the way they want it instead of the way the public needs it, they lose.
For these reasons, I do not feel the Development department for the apps is as innovative and helpful as the rest of the company, and as such, bring down the grade for the company as a whole--and if I were to rate these apps, for Faithlife Study Bible, it would be 2, and for all others, it would be 3.
