Reviews and Comparisons

[Outis]

Hello all,

 

I just finished being interviewed for a podcast about the 'big three' bible software packages out there. I (obviously) was interviewed as the mac-Accordance guy. If you'd like to listen they'll have the podcast up on Wednesday:

 

http://blogs.wels.net/welstech/

 

This however, is just context for my next two questions:

 

1) every now and then there are reviews of Accordance. Where can I find links to these reviews?

 

2) Are there any decent comparisons of Accordance with Logos and Bibleworks? The few comparisons I've read seemed to be thinly-veiled propaganda for the writer's own favorite software. Are there any out there which speak about the strengths and weaknesses in a little detail without getting polemical?

 

Thank you all,

[Helen Brown]

Thank you for posting this, we will listen with interest.

 

Our links to reviews that we know of are here.

 

Agreed that very few people take time to really get to know all the packages and compare their strengths and weaknesses, but there are a few out there.

[Outis]

Our links to reviews that we know of are here.

 

Thanks for the link. It answers my first question perfectly.

 

I should add a disclaimer before you hear the interview. The topic was bible software for pastors (who know the original languages). We didn't get too much into the differences between the software packages available. And we also wanted to keep it light-hearted and non-polemical. So, we didn't go into detail too much. I would have liked to have talked about the search capabliities and diagramming and font exporting and a whole bunch of other stuff. But, the interview would have gone for two hours instead of 30 minutes. You get three pastors together and you can easily get three hours of material. And nobody wants to listen that long.

[Outis]

Hello All,

 

Just wanted to let you all know that that podcast was posted Today. I told you that it would be there last Wednesday. But I was mistaken. Anyway, it's posted. And you can listen at your leisure:

 

http://blogs.wels.net/welstech/

[David Lang]

Steve,

 

I just listened to it and felt you and the other presenters did an excellent job. Everyone was fair in their assessments and there was minimal flag-waving! I think anyone who listens will come away with a reasonably good sense of the three programs' distinctives.

[David Lang]

By the way, another interesting podcast about Bible software can be found here. It's mostly focused on Windows and these guys do have a tendency to rabbit-trail a bit, but one guy speaks pretty highly about Accordance. For those who want to cut to the chase the bit about Accordance is around the halfway mark. They also talk a bit about advantages and disadvantages of electronic Bible study in general.

 

Boy, I really overused the word "bit" in that last post! Time to get a thesaurus.

[Outis]

Thanks David,

 

It was a fun interview. And I'm glad you, as one who knows more about Accordance than I, enjoyed it.

 

I look forward to seeing what your apps for iPad and iPhone look like. I'm studiously trying to ignore that the iPad exists now. The last thing I need is to be addicted to yet another Apple product. I'll be content to figure out my iPhone.

[Dominic]

So this interview led me to go look at Logos for mac out of curiosity to see if the application had improved since I tried it out when in school (I found it before to be inefficient at searching the grammatically tagged texts, my main use, but it was also on a pretty old PC).

 

It's not a good sign when your demo video shows you how good it is at committing an exegetical fallacy... The fallacy occurs a little before the half-way mark. It sort of reminds me how advertisements of Chess always seem to have the chessboard set up incorrectly.

 

I notice on the accordance videos there tends to be truly insightful and useful observations made with the software. It demonstrates, I think, that the people making and demoing the product make serious use of it themselves. This is probably why it is so powerful and efficient at getting real work done.