What accessible Bible app are folks using now?

By Pat Pound*, 10 January, 2018

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I used to use the life church Bible or the Gateway Bible apps. Both of which are now not accessible with voiceover. Life church has unlabeled key buttons and Gateway picker doesn’t work properly. I checked out touch Bible verse of the day neither of which work well for me. Any thoughts? Has anyone contacted life church about correcting there in accessibility?

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Comments

By gailisaiah on Friday, January 5, 2018 - 13:44

Hi Pat,
I have the Through The Bible app.

By charles on Friday, January 5, 2018 - 13:44

In reply to by gailisaiah

My choice is in the subject line. It has high quality speech rather than using your phone's selected Voice-Over voice. This is why it takes up more space than other apps. Note that there are two apps, one for the Old Testament and one for the New Testament, King James Versions. The app is totally Voice-Over friendly and all buttons are clearly labeled.

By Travis on Friday, January 5, 2018 - 13:44

I am finding the LifeChurch, YouVersion app to work fine with Voiceover. I also have a Logos Bible Software package, and that version is getting better regularly. Logos is good if you want scholarly resources, but it is not cheap.

By Pat Pound* on Friday, January 5, 2018 - 13:44

In reply to by Travis

Thanks for your comment, took another look at this app. I suspect the screen may appear only as you’re setting it up, but at the screen for I got only unlabeled buttons I just pressed anything, and then I got things that were quite accessible. So, as long as people know they can get around the screen I think it is probably as good as in the past thank you for reminding me to recheck it.

By Ekaj on Friday, January 5, 2018 - 13:44

I don't yet have an iOS device, but saw this thread just now and want to comment. I recently registered on http://www.biblegateway.com , and it seems to work very well with VoiceOver. I sent them feedback not long after registering, and someone got right back to me and told me that if I ran into any issues just contact them again. So I think they're receptive to feedback from screen reader users and users of other AT. In addition, one of their partners is Talking Bibles International. The TBI website is also pretty accessible, and although this isn't related to Apple products my mom ordered me one of their Bibles. It came and I've been using it ever since. Just for the record, their Bibles are small stand-alone devices with recorded human speech. I'm curious to try out the Bible Gateway app when I get my iPhone and am good enough on it. One thing to note though about the Bible Gateway site. Most of their audio content requires the dreaded Adobe flash player, and I for one haven't had good luck updating that with VoiceOver and Safari. So whenever I want to listen to any of their audio content now, I use Google Chrome with Chromevox.

By AbleTec on Friday, January 5, 2018 - 13:44

Hey, Pat, I use the YouVersion app. I'm doing the Bible in a year plan. You can friend me on there if you'd like. The only problem I have is if I miss a day & then catch up, & I want to read the current day, it's often hard to get to. I like having audio bibles on there. I'm actually reading the Message version, &, although it's sometimes a bit jarring in that familiar passages are no longer familiar, on the other hand it kind of makes you sit up & take notice. Great thing to do while having morning coffee. Much success w/your studying.

By Roxann Pollard on Friday, January 5, 2018 - 13:44

Hello AbleTec: If you get off track in your Bible reading plan and need to find the appropriate dates you missed, here is how it works:

Go to the Plans tab and open your current Bible reading plan.
Then find the button that indicates how many days you missed. You can do this two ways, either drag your finger down the middle of the screen until you find the button or switch the rodor to headings and swipe downward.
Once you have found this button, double tap and open it up. Here you will find the dates you have missed. Double tap on each date to read and then repeat the above steps for each succeeding date.
Once you have finished with all prior dates, in order to get back to today's reading, do the following:
While you are on whatever date page you finished before today's reading, locate the button labeled More, found in the upper righthand corner. Double tap and open this up. Here you have a few controls including the Calendar. Double tap and open the Calendar. The calendar is set up in a grid. Simply slide your finger through the grid until you find the current date. Double tap the date and this will reopen the plan to the date selected. Now you can read as you normally do.

HTH

By Kimbowen on Monday, February 5, 2018 - 13:44

I love this version because the app is fully accessible, the Bible is fully dramatized, has excellent background orchestral music, and it only cost 20 bucks for the complete version (the $49 it’s definitely a typo because when I first purchased the complete app, it was $20); The app developers know about this issue . I used to have the Go Bible NIV app, Which I have an a set of 66 CDs, but the introductions to each book was missing, there was never an iOS 11 update, and I couldn’t read the Bible with voiceover. The Bible Experience is wonderful because I can either download the audio or look at the Bible chapter by chapter or verse by verse using voice over. Plus, I can search the entire Bible for different verses and there are headings in the Bible, such as Jesus Heals The Blind Man.

By Roxann Pollard on Monday, February 5, 2018 - 13:44

Hello Kimbowen:

I just wanted to say thanks for mentioning this Bible app. I have the Audible version of this one but I like it much better as an app because of the chapter and verse navigation capabilities. What a blessing to have God's Word brought to life with the NIV Live app. Thank you for mentioning it here.

By Brian Giles on Monday, February 5, 2018 - 13:44

I've started using LDS Gospel Library. One of those apps I've had on my phone for a while but haven't really looked at much till the other day. It’s a free app. It has the KJV bible along with all their other materials. When I first downloaded it it wasn't very accessible, but it now works wonderfully with VO. You can read the text with VO (which also means it works with a braille display), but you can also choose a male or female human narrator if you're more of an audio book person. The tips section of the app says you're supposed to be able to link materials together to make your own cross references, but I haven't figured out how to do this yet.

By Remy on Monday, February 5, 2018 - 13:44

Thanks for mentioning the NIV live. I may actually need to give this a try. My old testament reading is lacking (mainly because I got past Lavidicus and my eyes, ears and soul started to bleed. I'd also recommend the gospel Library app. Again it is only the King James Version, but it has a whole ton of supplementary material which, while focused primarily on the LDS denomination is still very appropriate for understanding the bible. It also has chapter headings which outline just what the chapter is about. Also has the bible dictionary which is really helpful. Actually all the study helps stuff is. It's mostly accessible, though using the footnotes and linking is a little awkward.

By Greg Wocher on Monday, February 5, 2018 - 13:44

Hello,
I would like to find an offline version of the NASV bible translation. You would think tis would be easy but its not. Anyone come across an offline version? Paid or free does not matter. Some of the bible app mentioned have the NASV but they are all online only.

Thanks,
Greg WOcher

By AbleTec on Monday, February 5, 2018 - 13:44

That's actually what I'd been doing, but it seems really clunky to me. Thanks for confirming that's what you do also, Roxann. I thought I was missing something, but, if so, I evidently am in very good (& very nice) company.