I can’t spend a ton of time on every app review. It’d just frustrate me. So, I’m going to start doing some “shorts”: a series of 3 quick (no more than a few paragraphs) app reviews. Today I’ll do some “reading” apps.
Kindle
I’m just doing a short review of the Kindle app because most everyone knows about and has likely used it. If you don’t know what it is, it’s a book reader for reading primarily books bought through the Amazon kindle store (but it can read other formats too, like pdfs). It works brilliantly. You can highlight passage, bookmark pages, share bits and pieces from what you are reading, all within the app itself. Further, for books you buy on the kindle store, it keeps everything synced between devices, and you can even view your highlights and such online. It’s my preferred e-reader on the iPad. 5 of 5 stars.
Logos Bible
The Logos Bible app is a an app built for Bible study. And it’s quite a nice app. It beautifully presents the text, and has a plethora of study options (I particularly like the passage guides). It’s big issue, though, is that it is designed to be paired with the desktop app. If you have it (version 4 in either the Mac or Windows variety), this will likely be your iOS bible app of choice. If you DON’T, well, it probably won’t be. The cost barrier will make it difficult to justify when there are free apps that do similar things. Because of this, it loses “stars” in my rating, and it’s not an app I use day to day; I don’t have the desktop version and don’t ever see myself having the money to splurge on it. 3 of 5 stars (likely more if you have the desktop version)
YouVersion Bible
I mentioned free, and fully featured, Bible software in the Logos review. The YouVersion Bible app is the one that most people will want to check out. It beautifully presents the Bible, has built in reading plans and the ability to take notes linked to references, bookmark verses as well as share them through a variety of means. Most of the translations can be downloaded for offline viewing as well. If you haven’t checked it out, you should. It’s definitely worth a look (and will plug you into a large community of folks interested in studying the Bible). 4 of 5 stars