The fact that people are still blown away by the features we introduced in Accordance 1.0 is a testament to how revolutionary a program it was. Seventeen years later, we haven't stopped innovating. We haven't even slowed down. More cool stuff is right around the corner…

That's how I ended my most recent blog post last week. Today, I'm pleased to announce that some of the "cool stuff" I alluded to has arrived: Accordance 9.5 is here, with more ridiculously cool features than can reasonably be expected in a point-update. Better still, it's free!

What's so great about Accordance 9.5? The feature that's generating the most excitement is the new Dynamic Interlinear. With a click of a checkbox, you can view any grammatically-tagged Greek or Hebrew text in an interlinear format, or any translation tagged with Key numbers in a reverse interlinear format. That's cool, but the thing that makes the Dynamic Interlinear truly dynamic is that you can mix and match any tagged or keyed text in an interlinear view, as well as show or hide information such as lemma, part of speech, parsing, and syntax.

Set up an interlinear to show translation differences, or one to help you see Greek textual variants, one to offer translation help without helping you parse, and another to offer parsing help without showing an English translation.

Once you design an interlinear you like, you can save it so you have instant access to it. It's incredibly powerful and flexible, and it works with all your existing tagged and key-numbered texts!

Cool as it is, the Dynamic Interlinear is just one of the many improvements in Accordance 9.5. Check out the new features page for details. Or better yet, download it and start playing with it.

A new update to Accordance 9 was released today. Accordance 9.4.2 supports the syncing of Unicode Bibles with iOS devices, fixes several minor Lion-related issues, and even offers a few speed enhancements. Up to now, opening a new Map tab is one of the few things in Accordance which required me to wait several seconds. Granted, I'm using a four-year-old MacBook Pro, so maybe I felt the pain of it more than most of you do. Now, however, a new Map opens in about a second—even on my older machine.

Accordance 9.4.2 is free to all users of Accordance 9, and can be downloaded through Check for Updates in the Accordance menu. See here for more details.

Most of the time, I'm excited about new Accordance updates and features. Not today. A new iOS Update is now available which adds support for Unicode Bibles including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian. Completely ignorant of the Asian languages, all I can do with those is appreciate how cool they look. But I did take Russian in college, and I was excited to load it on my iPad and "brush up" on my Russian.

The new feature works great. I can display the Russian Synodal Bible in parallel with an English translation and read them on my iPad. There's just one problem: I'm way beyond being able to "brush up" on my Russian. I can barely remember how to pronounce the words, much less recognize much of the vocabulary. There's nothing like the opportunity to use a language to show you how much you've forgotten.

Because it has bruised my ego, I'm not a big fan of this new update. I do grudgingly recognize, however, that some of you may still be able to read these languages, so perhaps you'll feel differently about this update than I do. If you're in that category, be sure to download it from the app store today.

I'm very pleased to announce that a major update to Accordance for iOS is now available through the App store. Accordance for iOS 1.3 offers a host of new features and minor enhancements that will have a major impact on your mobile workflow.

Highlight: Accordance for iOS now comes with a default set of highlight styles, and allows you to highlight entire verses by tapping and holding on the verse reference. The highlight files from your desktop Accordance can also be synced with your iOS device, so any word-specific highlighting you've done on the Mac can be viewed on your mobile device.

Copy Verses: When you tap and hold on a verse reference, you also get the option to copy that verse to the clipboard. If you're in Reader mode, you can expand the number of verses copied by clicking the left and right arrows that appear.

Never Lose Your Place: Accordance for iOS now remembers the search state, location, and parallel pane for any module opened during a session. So you can now switch between multiple Bibles and books without losing your place.

Preview Pictures: Pictures in tools now appear as thumbnails within the text rather than a generic picture icon.

Use Your User Tools: User tools can now be synced from your Mac installation so you can access and read them on your iOS device. Editing them on iOS is not supported, but if you've placed ten years of sermon transcripts in a user tool, you can now access them on your mobile device.

Go To the Way You Want To: Those who don't dig the wheel interface for jumping to a verse can now choose an optional list interface. Those wanting a grid view will have to wait a little longer.

Interface enhancements: Black is the new brown, popover menus now appear on the iPad, the parallel pane is more subtle and functional, and there are lots of other improvements.

All in all, this update is a huge step forward, and we've only just begun. If you don't have it yet, be sure to get it now.

I'm pleased to announce that Accordance 9.4 is now available. This free update for anyone with Accordance 9 includes some really cool enhancements you'll soon wonder how you ever lived without.

The link I just gave summarizes the new features really well, so I'll just mention two of my favorites. The first is the ability to search your library by Module name, full Title, Author, Publisher, or Any Category. This makes it much easier to find your modules even when you can't remember the module name. Want to find every commentary you own? Type "commentary" in the Library search field. Want to see all your Greek texts and lexicons? Enter "Greek."

My second favorite feature of Accordance 9.4 is that you can now hover over a footnote marker in a Bible text to see the note in the Instant Details box. If you click on the note marker, the appropriate Notes module will open in an automatically-tied zone so you can follow hyperlinks or scroll the notes in parallel. It's a feature many of you have been waiting a long time for, and its implementation is really slick.

Be sure to download the update and begin playing with all the new enhancements. Also, be on the lookout for a new update to Accordance for iOS in the coming days (pending Apple's approval).

When we laid out our initial spec for Accordance for iOS, we planned to offer two ways to get your Accordance modules onto your iOS device: direct download and syncing with Accordance on your Mac. When it became apparent that the syncing feature would take longer than we hoped, we decided not to hold up the iOS release just for that one—admittedly important—feature.

While it was certainly the right decision, leaving out the syncing feature meant that modules which were not available for download could not be installed on an iOS device. While a small subset of modules are only available on disk, they included major works such as Word Biblical Commentary, many of the older Zondervan materials, etc. Furthermore, without the ability to sync user notes, there was no easy way to take notes on your iOS device and then transfer those back to your Mac. Thankfully, Accordance 9.3 for Mac and Accordance 1.2 for iOS now add the long-awaited ability to sync between platforms. Accordance 9.3 for Mac was released last week, and Accordance 1.2 for iOS became available through the app store just last night. Both updates are available for free.

To sync modules and notes between your Mac and iOS devices, you need to make Accordance for iOS available to sync by Sync icon in the Library view.

Then in Accordance for Mac, select Sync with Mobile Device from the Accordance menu. A dialog box will appear showing which iOS devices are currently available to sync over a WIFI connection. Select the device you want and click Connect.

You'll then see a listing of all the Accordance modules available to sync.

These currently include Texts, Tools, and User Notes. You can check each category to sync all the modules in that category, or you can open the category and choose specific modules to sync. Once you've selected the modules you want on your iOS device, simply click Sync Now.

That's all there is to it. Now you can load any modules you own onto your iOS device, and transfer any notes you've taken between the two platforms.

Accordance for iOS 1.2 offers a number of other exciting features which I'll detail in upcoming posts. Until then, you can find a list of them here.

Since we released 9.3, a few of you have been frustrated in your attempts to update. If you've been able to update to 9.3 successfully, only to get a migration error or be asked to locate the Accordance folder, those problems are the result of bugs in 9.3. The solution is to update to 9.3.1, an update we released last night which fixes those and a few other bugs. If you're using Check for Updates in Accordance 9.2 and every time you try to update to 9.3 you get an FTP error, you need to download the installer for 9.3.1 directly from our website. We apologize for the hassles. As always, we've tried to address them as quickly as possible.

Today has seen a flurry of new releases and announcements. In case you've missed them, here's a brief recap:

New Accordance: We're very excited to announce the release of Accordance 9.3, a free update for all users of Accordance 9. This is a major update which addresses a number of much-requested features, and I'll be covering it in detail in future posts. Until then, download it, play with it, and have fun.

New Demo: Of course, you shouldn't keep all that fun to yourself, so encourage your friends to try Accordance 9.3 for themselves. We've just released a new, beefed up trial version that is far more functional than previous demos, and the new Assistant window will help those who are brand new to Accordance get up and running right away.

New Podcast: If we're not careful, we're going to lose Dr. J to some top-flight producer of infomercials. His latest podcast on Why Bible Software does a masterful job of explaining why you should want to use Bible software in general and Accordance in particular. Be sure to check it out.

But Wait, There's More! Okay, so that's just the stuff that's new today. In the coming days, you can expect a new update to Accordance for iOS, a flurry of cool new module releases, and more.

Accordance 9 introduced the concept of "zones," areas of a workspace which automatically display different kinds of resources side by side. Most users of Accordance 9 have loved this feature, but what do you do when you open a bunch of different resources and end up with several tiny zones? What if you're viewing a map, timeline, or picture in a small zone and you want an easy way to enlarge it?

With Accordance 9.2—now available for free download to all users of Accordance 9—you simply click the new plus icon near the top left corner of the zone to Magnify that zone so that it fills the entire workspace!

Magnify Zone is just one of the cool new enhancements in Accordance 9.2. We've also added Next and Previous arrows to all image windows to give you an easy way to browse the images in a tool without having to scroll past all the surrounding text. We've combined the Easy Install and Automatic Update dialogs and made it possible for interrupted downloads to pick up where they left off rather than starting over from the beginning. That last improvement will eventually make its way into Accordance for iOS so that an unexpected phone call won't wipe out what you've already downloaded. (Can I get an "Amen"?) Accordance 9.2 also fixes a number of bugs and continues to improve Greek and Hebrew syntax searches.

To enjoy all of these new enhancements, simply choose Check for Updates from your Accordance menu, or download the free update here.