Accordance on the iPhone

Today the folks at OakTree Software, makers of Accordance Bible Software, released a screenshot of the current Accordance iOS (iPhone) app due out this Fall. The impending release will be cause for great excitement from many users, myself included. I have been using OliveTree Bible Software on my mobile device for nearly a decade, and it is rocking good on the iPhone. I have a basic set of Greek tools on it, so it will be interesting to see how Accordance's app stacks up once it hits the app store and we get a chance to see it.

I recall at last year's SBL, following the "bible software smackdown," that folks were impressed just what was possible with a mobile app when Olive Tree's Bible Reader had a go at the challenge. What it could do was impressive because the presumed limitations had expectations quite low. This will be a new context. Accordance is bible software whose sophistication and capabilities is unrivaled. This creates a difficult situation where the inevitably limited functionality of a first release will be easy to find disappointing. For this reason, it is lamentable that the Accordance hat won't land in the ring until relatively late in the game.

That said, despite whatever capabilities Olive Tree's Bible Reader has possessed over the years on my portable device, I rarely use it for anything but reading the bible, and rarely a simple search. This is precisely the basic functionality Accordance has told us to expect. I suspect many, many current Accordance users are thrilled to soon be able to simply read their Accordance modules on their iPhones. Fun times ahead.