Almost one year to the day we announced the long-awaited release of the Accordance iOS app. It is exciting to look back and see the progress we’ve made in that time thanks to a devoted development team, and the enthusiastic support and recommendations of our users. In that time we’ve had a significant number of downloads from users all over the globe. Thank you for making our app a success!

For me this excitement came to a peak with the recent release of version 1.4. With this release our app has moved beyond being a simple reader and is now capable of functioning as an independent Bible study tool with extremely fast performance and an equally impressive feature set. But, we’re not stopping there. We have aggressive development plans for 2012 and are dedicated to investing in this platform.

Although an app should never be measured by what’s planned, I can say that development for version 1.5 is underway and will bring with it a more polished reading experience.

For those that may have missed the version 1.4 announcement here’s a recap of the new features (which you can also find on our Help Page):

1. Selection in a Pane

Press and hold in a pane brings up a magnifier to enable precise selection of a word or reference. When released, it opens either an Actions menu or an expanded Instant Details popover with the actions at the bottom.

2. Actions Menu

Always offers Copy and Highlight, and where appropriate offers Search and Amplify. For Key number texts, Search and Amplify then offer Word or Key Number options, whereas in tagged original texts you can search or amplify the Inflected Form, Lemma, or Root.

Search opens the current main text or tool and finds the selected word.

Amplify opens the appropriate text or tool to the selected word or entry. A two finger swipe to the right returns to the previous view. The previous module can also be selected in the Library.

3. Instant Details

Now displays black text on a Newsprint background.

For Key Number words the parsing and gloss are displayed if a tagged original text is also installed. The definition of the related Key dictionary is displayed and can be scrolled.

For tagged original texts the Syntax is shown, if installed, and the full article from the top lexicon of the same language.

Tool hyperlinks display the linked content.

The Actions menu buttons appear at the bottom.

4. Library View

Now organized hierarchically by module type with the first section for Recent Modules.

Search at top level searches all the sections.

Editing the order of modules, or removing them, is done within each section.

New Notes files are now created from the User Notes popover.

5. Devotionals

Modules with readings for each day now appear as Devotionals as well as General tools.

When opened from their section they appear in a new view with a parallel pane displaying the Bible text.

6. Main Text and Tool Views Changes

Press and hold on the Search button opens the History menu. The first item in the History is the Read mode which clears the current search results.

Wider side margins.

Parallel pane chooser uses a segmented control to select the list of modules of the desired type.

Most internal and external hyperlinks now work when a Reference tool is displayed in a parallel pane.

7. History Menu

Opens with a long tap on the Search icon in the main view, or a short tap on the History button in the Search view.

As needed, shows Read, New Search, and a list of past searches in that module.

8. Verse Selection Actions Menu

Adds the Amplify button which opens the first Reference tool with an entry for that verse.

The User Note action offers the option of creating a new User Note file.

9. Grid Style Verse Chooser

Available in Settings as an alternative to the Wheel and the List.

10. Other

The contents of both Recent Modules and the History menu are saved between sessions.

Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar: 3rd Edition is supported including the audio links.

iOS 5 will no longer purge modules for lack of space. However, only user content (Notes, Tools and Highlights) is backed up in iTunes or iCloud.

After we updated our website and blog, I wrote a post offering some tips on subscribing to and navigating the blog. If you're new to the whole blogosphere and find some of the terms are confusing, I recommend checking it out. Since then we've continued to experience a growing number of subscribers, to whom we're thankful for continuing to read and interact with David's hidden gems of Accordance as well as our various updates and promotions.

In this post I'd like to follow-up with some more tips on subscribing to the blog, and reading it on your iOS devices.

Based on our blog stats, most readers subscribe to the blog with Google Reader (or one of its related services). And for many of you that subscribe in this fashion, I'm sure you've noticed that our posts are truncated. This has been the number one reason why I subscribed to all feeds with Mail (because it mysteriously does not truncate the feed). But, I've recently found an awesome little app that has cured my Google Reader woes—Reeder for iPhone, iPad and soon for Mac (now in public beta). Reeder takes your Google Reader subscriptions and turns them into a whole new reading experience. You can even use it to subscribe to our User Forums.

The key feature of Reeder with regards to our blog (and others whose content is truncated), is 'readability.' With this feature you can instantly load the content of the entire post into the same window without launching a web browser.

The only drawback to Reeder is that you cannot (currently) manage your subscriptions. For that you'll still have to launch your browser and log in to your Google Reader account.

Here are a couple Reeder screenshots, and below is a short screen cast with some advanced tips on subscribing to new content that I hope will make reading our blog a more pleasurable experience.