Wed 15 Nov 2006
A friend of mine, who is a Christian, asked me how to read Bible in S60 phone. Normally, she goes to the church bringing “normal” Bible (read: book version). She thought it would be more convenient to bring Bible in her S60 phone.
There are some commercial Bible software for S60 phones, for example:
- coBIBLE KJV (supporting S60 3rd Edition)
- coBIBLE NIV (supporting S60 3rd Edition)
- NKJV - New King James Version for Symbian 60 2.0 (supporting S60 2nd Edition)
- Holy Bible (American Standard Version) for S60 (supporting S60 1st/2nd Edition)
As I mentioend, all the above software are commercial ones. Are there free version of Bible for S60? If you are looking for a free version, I have found two good solutions, i.e. MobiReader and S60Bible.
MobiReader
As you may know MobiReader is basically an e-book reader. It is one of the most popular e-book reader for S60 phones. Not only Bible, you can also read other e-books in MobiReader format (.prc).
There are some Bibles available in .prc format. One of my favorite Bible is Holy Bible (King James Version). The following screenshots show how Holy Bible (KJV) looks like in MobiReader. Notice that we can switch between full screen and normal mode.
Click here to download MobiReader
Click here to download Holy Bible (King James Version)
S60Bible
S60Bible is another Bible reader. It is not as good as MobiReader. The good thing about S60Bible is because it reads Bible in Palm e-book format (.pdb). There are many Bibles in .pdb format on the Internet. They are also available in different versions and languages. PalmBible+ is one of the source that lists Bibles in .pdb format.
Please note that some Bibles may not be rendered properly in S60Bible because this reader doesn’t support all .pdb syntax.
The following screenshots show how S60Bible looks like. The first one shows Bible in Dutch language. The second one shows Indonesian language. The last one shows search feature in S60Bible.
Click here to download S60Bible
Click here to download Bibles for S60Bible
Update (15-Nov-2006): Thank to Steve who pointed out another nice Bible software for S60, i.e. BibleReader from Olive Tree Bible Software.
Click here to download BibleReader
Click here to download Bibles for BibleReader (note that not all Bibles are free)
Compatible devices: S60 2nd, 3rd, Nokia Nseries, Nokia Eseries.
Links of Interest: Bible character costumes for Easter and Christmas events.
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November 15th, 2006 at 2:55 am
Also see the Olive Tree reader, as mentioned on my http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/bible.htm page, which has been up for ages
It works well with some of their free bible texts.
Steve
November 15th, 2006 at 9:34 am
@Steve: Thanks for the additional info. I will try to download the one from Olive Tree Reader.
November 15th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
I use Go Bible (Java)
November 15th, 2006 at 8:17 pm
Nice article, Thanks Antony!
I notice that there are many solutions…
I wrote about this as well esp. for E61: http://jake61.wordpress.com/2006/11/02/how-to-get-a-bible-onto-your-e61/
November 16th, 2006 at 4:00 am
Glad to have helped. It seems that there are more ways to get the bible on S60 thateven I had realised.
To be honest, when you get a ‘phone’ out in church you get some very strange looks, people think you’re playing a game or sending texts. Maybe in 10 years time it’ll be more ‘acceptable’. 8-(
Steve
November 16th, 2006 at 8:58 am
I think it won’t need 10 years, may be in the next 3-5 years, it is already acceptable…
One thing that I noticed, there is no “easy” way for ordinary users to install Bible in S60. IMHO, it is still too complicated for them.
November 18th, 2006 at 9:27 am
Unfortunately, using your mobile during Church is highly frowned upon here in the Bible Belt. Even if you explain that you are reading the Bible they still don\\\’t approve it as \\
November 18th, 2006 at 9:47 am
@Darla: Very interesting. It similar case to explaining to stewardess that we use “offline” mode in our mobile phone.
November 29th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
Fortunately, our church approve us to use phone/pda to read bible.
March 15th, 2008 at 4:58 am
This is not an eBook reader but if you want a FREE, simple to install, modern translation of the bible for your s60 it is difficult to go past the GoBible app with the NET Bible translation.
see http://www.moements.net/wiki/doku.php?id=go_bible:index