Inductive Bible Study v2.0.0

March 30, 2021 ampers 2 Comments

This is a long time coming, but I have finally updated the Inductive Bible Study app. A while back the bible API broke which means the app pretty much was useless. I looked into a few options to pull the Bible, but no free service really offered a major Bible translation, except for the ESV. So I am now only pulling the ESV text into this app.

I also tried updating this app to the newer coding standards. While the user will not really see any differences, I pretty much re-wrote this app to use fragments and not make each screen a new activity. This did take a bit of relearning, but they say it is better. Code is reused, but it did take me a little to get my head around each UI screen becoming a subpart of the main activity java class. Calling functions and knowing your code context was an initial hurdle. But I kinda got there in the end. There may still be some things I have forgotten. I did remember to update for the native android night mode

I have updated the play store, the portfolio page, and am trying again to use the Amazon dev console (we will see if it works in a few days).

Send Bible passages from the Australian Daily Prayer app to the Inductive Bible Study app

May 9, 2016May 11, 2016 ampers 1 Comment

Two apps updated in one day, that is value adding.

The Australian Daily Prayer app can now send the readings of the day, or the Psalm(s) of the day to the Inductive Bible Study app. If the Inductive Bible Study app is installed, an icon will now appear next to the daily readings or Psalms (see picture) and if pressed the text will then be sent across for you to create a new Bible study.

Hopefully this integration will allow more interaction with your daily Bible readings. It might be a good tool to use if feel you should read and study the Bible more, but don’t know where to start.

I was surprised as to how easy it was to actually send content from one app to another in Android. It really is no different to sending content from one screen (or activity) to another, both can be done via a simple Intent.

Because I had to edit both apps to get ready to send and receive content from each other, it also meant I had a chance to get in and adjust a few landscape layout issues I was having on my 10″ tablet. Now, in both these apps, the margins are bigger, meaning the text in landscape doesn’t span across the whole length of the screen, making it easier to read.

Both updates have been pushed out the Play store and also to this website.

15,000 downloads for #NewCityCatechism android app and other milestones

April 22, 2016 ampers Leave a comment

I have been a little asleep at the wheel with my Android development. This is due to some personal things going on, and a laundry rebuilding project I’m doing at home. For the time being things will still be slow in this area. However, I noticed that a few milestones for total downloads have been reached.

The New City Catechism app crossed over the 15,000th download, and at this point in time there are around 10,0000 devices that still have it installed. I’m pretty happy with that retention rate. I noticed on the day that the app clicked over to 15,000 total downloads there was a small spike in installed. Looking around twitter I saw that Alistair Begg and his ministry Truth For Life tweeted a webpage that links to this app.

I also noted that OpenSpritz Bible app crossed over 1,000 downloads (with only a 20% retention rate) and that my new Inductive Bible Study app has been downloaded more than 100 times (at the moment it is actually 172 time).

As with all these milestone updates, I would like to say “thank you” to everyone who downloaded my apps, even if you uninstalled it right away. Thanks for taking the time to at least check them out and my prayer is that you learned something new about the God who is really there.

New App: Inductive Bible Study

February 12, 2016 ampers Leave a comment

I have been leading Bible studies on and off for about 8-10 years. During this time I have used many different methods, study guides, booklets, materials etc… however, about 4 (or so) years ago I saw the Inductive Bible Study method demonstrated and I got hooked. I liked this method as it is simple, completely focused on the text and is easy to reproduce (ie you can teach someone else to do the same thing easily).

I pretty much made this app for my own use, as every week (or fortnight) I would use this method in preparation for Bible study. Then as a group we would use the same method together. While using MS Word for preparing the study and saving it to a device or printing it out is possible, I’m hoping this app means I don’t have to copy and past any Bible text, nor have a need to use paper. Also, 1 minute after the study I can email the group a pdf of the notes I had made.

So hopefully, since I think there is a need for this app, others might also use it. The app can pull down a Bible passage (with or without the translators headings) and then be saved so you can mark up the text. I used an open source module for the marking up, so in return this app is also open source and be downloaded here.

Within the app here are instructions for each phase of the method. These instructions are a bit technical, but I figured, if you have it with you all the time, you can use it as a reference to go back to if you want (or just ignore them and tweak the process to suit your own needs). I’ve also put these notes online, just because I can.

So check out the app on the Play Store or to side load it, you can download the APK from this site.