Thursday, August 7, 2008 -- 9 a.m. -- on my couch

Even R.E.M. wouldn't be losing their religion if they carried an iPhone or iPod touch.

I must say ... while there's not as many Torahs and Qurans as there are bibles, developers are really firing on all cylinders and coming up with some nice looking stuff.

Take Siddur, for example. It's a pocket Jewish prayer book for $9.99. It's well-thought out, shows proper Hebrew text and looks to be really useful for someone who would rather tote around an iPhone or iPod touch than a prayer book.

And think a prayer app can't be cool? The app provides proper prayer times for each day based on your location determined with the iPhone's GPS. That's really something.

Then there's iQuran, which is, as you may have guessed, an electronic version of the Quran. There's a free version and a pro version for $25 that contains all of the Quran plus various translations.

There are too many bibles to list, but luckily, there are all kinds of choices in all kinds of price ranges so no one has to be left out.

Check them out and feel free to share your opinion.

Thanks for calling.

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Scott, I remember wondering on iPTIB whether there'd be any Bible Apps in the App Store. I've been pleasantly surprised. Especially since I found a FREE App by YouVersion called simply, Holy Bible. More than a dozen English versions plus Spanish, French (I love reading this one, maybe they speak French in Heaven???) German and Chinese. Even has a few extras like Daily Readings and Search.
Call me old-fashioned but I've long believed that God's Word should be FREE!
By the way, I'm not sure why you think the App is stale. I'm loving it - and I'm only using Free Apps!!!

SCOTT'S REPLY: LOL ... it does seem wrong to charge for something like this, doesn't it? I never thought of it. And by stale, I just meant that there was a lot of repetition. I like to see things that are unique each time I go to the app store. Maybe I'm being a bit too harsh overall. There's absolutely some quality stuff.

I'm not a religious man myself, but when I heard there were versions of the Bible, Quran, etc. in the App Store, I decided to take a look. The reason I decided to take a look? Well, I was guessing that the reviews section would be filled with hateful comments, and I wanted to see if I was right. Unsurprisingly, I was correct. I realize it's the internet, and personally I don't care about this kind of stuff because I'm not offended easily, but it just seems when Apple tries so hard to have strict control on things (See: Apple Forum), they'd want to not have their review section full of racism/prejudice.

SCOTT's REPLY: You know what, Raheel? I feel the same way ... I saw some really hateful comments when I was searching for the apps and it broke my heart to see.

Unrelated but related to the app store/iPhone:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/89735-apple-can-disable-iphone-apps-but-should-they?source=yahoo

SCOTT'S REPLY: Yeah, definitely a hot-button topic, Brad. Maybe Apple should spend more time fixing the problems instead of disabling things. All hands on deck to fix the big problems first, I say!

Scott:

I like Siddur but for the money I'd go for KosherMe. Not only is it cheaper but it also offers a transliteration. Which is nice if you're a nice Yiddishe boy that may have forgotten some pronounciations.
Also, the people that offer KosherMe, in response to complaints about the $6.99 price, said that people could offer to help with some of their work to offset the cost. Read the app description to see what I mean.
Anyway, I think it's great to be able to davan with my iPhone!

Jeff

SCOTT'S REPLY: Yep. And, it's nice that people realize that there's a need beyond just puzzles and games and that the audience is out there to appreciate it all.

I found iQuran a couple of weeks ago and went to their website to find out more. Even the free version looks good, and i wouldn't mind paying the price for the paid version either. Definitely on my "To-Download" list. Overall, seems like a nice offering for the Muslim Macsters like myself! :-)

SCOTT's REPLY: LOL. In terms of looks, it's a beautiful application to say the least.

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