Review: coBible NIV Version
Score:
58%
Version Reviewed: 3.0
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Whenever I want to do any Bible study on my phone, I’ve always used Mobipocket for its wealth of material. What it has lacked, however, is a search facility. Years ago, I owned a Nokia 9210 and that version of Mobipocket had a Search. When I moved (against better judgement) to Windows Mobile smartphones, Mobipocket didn’t have a search and when I came back to Series 60, Mobipocket still didn’t have a search. I asked Mobipocket why this was and they said the screen wasn’t wide enough(!!) I hoped, therefore, that the E61 version would have a search... it doesn’t.
Which brings me to this review, coBible NIV. NIV stands for New International Version, a version of the Bible written in modern English. There is a KJV (King James Version) edition if you want more literal accuracy in what the Bible is actually saying about something.
This version promised a search but since there was no trial version, I was a little nervous. Nevertheless, I went and bought it anyway. The download is remarkably small (I was expecting some 7MB, not something in the region of 1.5MB) and installation as easy as any Symbian application is (no need for step-by-step screenshots of the installation procedure, I’m sure). The first screen you get, then, when you start up is plain and simple. I was hoping for something that shows off the phone’s colour display, but hey, books are books and that’s what this is; a book.
You can navigate in three ways;
Navigation By Topic
One really neat idea is to navigate by topic so, if you want to know what the Bible has to say about prayer (for example), then you drill down through the topic categories until you get to a text which you find useful/inspiring/comforting etc.
Navigation By Book
You can navigate the Bible in a more traditional ‘By Book’ manner so that, if you know that you are looking for 1 Samuel 5:6, then you can go to it.
This one takes a little getting used to because (strangely) the New Testament comes first and you have to use the Options menu to get to the rest of the Old Testament.
Once you are accustomed to the book navigation interface, you’ll zip around like lightning because you can use the numbers to guide you so that, for example if we took the screenshot below, you could choose the book of Acts by pressing 2 for the row it is in and then press 1 because it is in the first column (the column will highlight to help).
It’s good if all you want is the New Testament and Ok if you want the Old Testament.
Navigation By Search
You can search the Bible using this software, but again, there are some odd restrictions which don’t make much sense to me.
You can search the Old Testament and the New Testament using keywords and exact phrases, but you can’t search both the Old and New Testaments together. This could be a problem for a Bible student but for a casual search where you already know what you’re looking for, this is OK.
The search results are clear enough and easy to get to.
After Mobipocket’s complete lack of a search facility, this isn’t half bad and I can live with it.
The interface bugs me though. It’s just not consistent. In the screenshots above and below, do you see the option on the right called ‘Back’? Do you also see in some of the shots an option on the left called ‘OK’? They do the same thing! I like to have my back buttons on the right otherwise I get confused. Sorry, it must be my age but it does bother me more than a little.
Also, the font size is stuck at smallish. I would like to make it bigger, but I can’t.
I will use this in the absence of an Olive Tree solution but if someone just wanted to read the Bible on their smartphone, I would have to recommend Mobipocket.
Reviewed by Rafe Blandford at