OliveTree vs. Laridian Bible Readers

This review is a comparison between OliveTree's BibleReader and Laridian's PocketBible plus Laridian's Daily Reader. Do not pay attention to the Laridian headers in the screenshots. Some will say PocketBible and some will say DailyReader depending on which program I was actually in. Most of the options mentioned for Laridian are universal for both the DailyReader and the PocketBible.

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Both these programs are very good programs and both have their own advantages. With a review so big, I didn't really know where to start, so I decided to start.....IN THE BEGINNING (pun intended:))

OliveTree

Laridian

Presentation

By presentation I was looking at how easy the reading was for each bible, and the preferences that made reading the bible easier or harder. As you can see above, the Olive tree font is much harder on the eyes than the Laridian font. Laridian's bible was just easier to read. There were a few options for each program. First I'll review OliveTree's presentation.

OliveTree Presentation

First, OliveTree only has a few options. The main ones are the size of the fonts and the size of the margins. The screenshots below show the extreme font choices (i.e. largest font and smallest font). The margins option isn't shown on the above screen shot because it's being covered by the drop down menu for font size. The same options are available for the margins however. Changing the margins (left and right margins only) didn't affect the presentation too much. All that did was to make more (or less) room on a page for scripture. The font size however makes a big deal. Although there was only one font available, changing the size helped make reading more enjoyable.

Laridian Presentation

As mentioned earlier, I feel Laridian has the advantage over OliveTree for presentation for several reasons. First, Laridian has several different fonts to choose from. So if a particular font isn't to your liking, you can change it. And on top of the fonts, you have text sizes to choose from. If those two alone aren't enough to make the reading better, Laridian also enables ClearType as the default setting which makes it much easier on your eyes to read. I didn't take any screenshots of these options because there were just too many combinations to get them all.

Another nice touch that Laridian offers is the option of displaying Christ's words in Red. This makes it stand out much more and makes it more enjoyable.

Movement

When comparing movement I was looking at how easy it was to maneuver through the bible.

OliveTree Movement

I felt that it was much easier to maneuver using OliveTree's software. One reason is the simplicity of OliveTree's software. First, you have two choices for going to certain verses. OliveTree calls them Verse+ and Verse-.

Verse+ is the default system OliveTree uses. To use Verse+ simply click on the header bar where it says "Bible-NAB" or you can choose Verse+ through the view menu. From there, tap on which book you want, then which verse you want. The only downfall to Verse+ is that it's only set up for the Old Testament and the New Testament (OT and NT). There's a choice for Apocrypha but it isn't choose-able. Depending on what bible you're using, this may or may not affect you. So if you want to go to a book that's not in the Old Testament nor the New Testament, then you'll have to use Verse-

Laridian Movement

Laridian's method of choosing what chapter you go to is real similar to OliveTree's Verse-. For this method, you choose an icon at the bottom of the screen (or you can choose it through the Find menu) and it'll bring up the screenshot below. The only difference between this and OliveTree's Verse- is that you tap what verse you want to go to and in OliveTree you write it out. Note: Ignore the buttons at the bottom, that's from my screenshot utility.

Daily Reading

I'm going to warn you that in this section I will not be comparing "apples to apples". What I mean is that OliveTree's software supports Daily Reading. All you have to do is download one of several reading schedules (free) onto your pda. With Laridian, you have to buy the Daily Reader program which includes the One Year Bible. So in actuality I'm comparing a feature of OliveTree to a complete program of Laridian. So as you might expect, I give the advantage here to Laridian.

OliveTree Daily Reading

Before you can use the Daily Reading option, you'll have to download a reading schedule. There's a few different choices that is offered, but they are all free. So try them out and see which you like. Once you have downloaded the reading schedule, to use it you'll have to tap on tools and then choose Daily Reading. The current month you're in will come up and then you just choose the day it is. The only problem with this is sometimes I have bad short-term memory. Sometimes I forget what I read and have to read part of the previous days to see if I read it. And when you choose one of the readings, it opens the bible to where you need to start the day's reading. Sometimes I forget where my stopping point is so I have to keep going into the BibleReader's Menu.

Laridian Daily Reading

As stated above, Laridian's Daily Reader is actually a program plus a bible. You have to pay an additional $12.99 here to download the Daily Reader plus the One Year Bible (OYB). However, you get two products in one. You can access the OYB while you're in the PocketBible Program. In doing this, it's very similar to OliveTree's Daily Reading.

Here you would try to open the chapter the same way you did earlier (either the icon or the Find Menu). The default would be on the NRSV tab (or whatever bible you have as your default bible). Now click on the OYB tab and you see a calendar. Pick the date you're on and the readings will come up in a new window. Choose which reading you want to do first. The only problem with this way is that it again opens the bible to where the reading is...you have to remember where to stop and change readings. I'll explain ibelow how the Daily Reader works and you'll see the difference.

To use the DailyReader, first you have to get out of the PocketBible and open the DailyReader Program. Upon opening the DailyReader, the first thing that comes up is the Date and the readings for the day. First tap one of readings and it will go directly to that reading. You also have the option of a split screen where the readings are in the top window and the scripture is on the bottom. Once you finish all the readings, you tap on the box at the top and it's checks itself. This helps you keep track of what you have and have not read. Also, when you open the days readings, it only opens the selected reading (not the bible). So in the example below, when I got to verse 15:21, there wasn't anything else to read. Then I'd go back to the first view and choose the next reading for the day. Much easier and more user-friendly.

A lot of the options that are available for the PocketBible are available for the DailyReader as well. I'm not going to go through them again because of space and because of redundancy. But I would like to go over one option that's a good addition for the Daily Reader. It's very likely that you're going to forget to read your readings some time. Instead of having to go back and find what the last reading was that you missed you can simply have the default set up so that you are shown the last reading when you open the program. Very nice.

Footnotes

Both bibles offer footnotes, but I have to give the advantage here to OliveTree. Both options are easy to use however OliveTree's footnotes are more complete. The screenshots here do a better job comparing than I could.

OliveTree

Laridian

Word Search

Both bibles again offer word searches. So you can find every instance a particular word shows up in the Bible. I'll have to say both programs do an equal job with this feature. No preference.

Notes

Only Laridian's PocketBible has the feature of adding your own personal notes. This is a nice little feature although not too easy to first figure out. Here when you are reading the bible and want to jot a note down, you can write it where you are. Great idea.

Expandability

What I was looking for here was the ability to do more than just read your bible. The advantage here is definitely in Laridian's favor. OliveTree offers a few devotionals, a few study tools and a BUNCH of bibles. However, Laridian offers 4 different programs (PocketBible, DailyReader, eTracts, and Memorize). Not only does are each one of these different programs, but each program has a good amount of books/writings to go with it. So you can get choose from a huge list of bibles, a nice group of DailyReaders and a few eTracts. Memorize works off the bibles you buy.

Price

This is a biggie...and it's totally in favor of OliveTree. I put this at the end of my review because there isn't much discussion to go with it.

• OliveTree offers it's reader for FREE. And a lot of their bibles are FREE as well. Some of their bibles do cost but they say this is because of copyright. All I can say is...thank you OliveTree:)
• Laridian makes you first buy their reading software ($10) and that doesn't come with any bibles. Then you have to buy a bible (or ten:)) Bibles range from $19.99 to $29.99. Then if you want any more of the programs, that will cost you too. I'm not talking bad about this, because I don't work for free...and I don't expect them too either. I just wish the bible reader itself was free.

Storage

This is a small gripe with OliveTree. I loaded both reader programs onto my main memory. But I wanted to load the bibles onto my SD card. Laridian worked fine, but I didn't even get the chance to load it up on my SD card for OliveTree. I'm not sure if it's possible to read the bibles from my SD card or not (I didn't try after it automatically loaded me onto main memory).

Summary

	OliveTree's BibleReader	Laridian's Pocket Bible & Daily Reader	Advantage
Basic Facts	Application name: BibleReader Tested version: 2.20j Author: OliveTree Download: Pocket PC (2.21MB) Full Version	Application name: PocketBible & Daily Reader Tested version: 2.015 Author: Laridian Download: Pocket PC (2.5MB) Demo Version: KJV New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs (will not read other bibles)
Presentation	5 choices of text size and margin size. No choice of font style.	Uses Cleartype and red text for Christ's Words. Many more options for text and text size.	Laridian
Movement	Choice of Verse+ and Verse-	Only choice similar to Verse-	OliveTree
Daily Reading	Free Reading Guide	Buy additional program but has reading guide is much more versatile.	Laridian
Footnotes	Footnotes are more explanative.	Footnotes are short and sweet.	OliveTree
Word Search	Search for particular words in the bible.	Search for particular words in the bible.	even
Notes	Not available.	Keep personal notes along with verses.	Laridian
Expandability	A good selection of bibles and a few other readings.	A Great selection of bibles and other readings to go along with their other programs.	Laridian
Price	Reader is free and many of the bibles are free. Study tools do are not free however.	Reader is $10 and bibles are from $20 to $30.	OliveTree
Storage	Didn't give me a choice to load bible onto memory card.	Loaded bible onto memory card.	Laridian
Learning Curve	Easy to learn how to navigate and use.	Laridian has a lot more of the "bells and whistles" and because of the more options, it obviously takes longer to learn everything.	OliveTree

Article rating - (13 votes)