These are pretty cool. Designing a world beating game character now seems surprisingly easy… thanks to Chris Kuma’s exploded schematics of your favourite game character from the 80s and 90s.
Pi plate: Because everybody needs a thousand digits of pi
This. Friends. Is a pi-plate. It has lots of pi. It has almost 1,500 decimal places (1,498 to be exact). So that you can invite a mathlete to dinner.
Via etsy.
We all take the same photos
I’m guilty. Partially. Of taking the same iconic tourism shot as everybody else. Though I also learned this lesson back in my tourism marketing days – so I’m much more interested in taking photos of people, or odd angles, or trying to do something unique, than I am in taking the same picture that features on post cards you can buy for a dollar – though those do have a place if you’re on a study tour (hence their appearance in the albums from the Greece and Turkey trip we went on last year).
When an artist named Corinne Vionnet noticed that everybody in the world seems to take the same photos she put together this exhibition of overlayed photos of some of the wonders of the tourism world.
“Switzerland-based Corinne Vionnet is our guide to the world’s most famous landmarks, monuments millions have visited before. Her art is created not by acrylic, oil, or watercolor, each piece is made by combining hundreds of tourist photos into one. After conducting an online keyword search and sifting through photo sharing sites, this Swiss/French artist carefully layers 200 to 300 photos on top of one another until she gets her desired result.”
Including the Parthenon, on the Acropolis in Athens.
Here’s my shot from that spot.
This composite shot of New York is interesting too, just because it still has the twin towers.
An ode to the Oxford Comma
I love the Oxford Comma. The comma that comes between and, and the word after and, or the comma before that or.
I think it improves clarity. And when I’m proof reading a non-Oxford user’s text I constantly have to resist the urge to plug them in.
The Oxford Dictionary’s entry on the Oxford Comma (linked above) says:
“It’s known as the Oxford comma because it was traditionally used by printers, readers, and editors at Oxford University Press. Not all writers and publishers use it, but it can clarify the meaning of a sentence when the items in a list are not single words…”
I actually think it improves clarity in all circumstances. Not just when you’re writing a sentence about a list of meal options. Like Pizza, fish and chips, and McDonalds. But before all final ands. It just looks nicer.
Preaching and adrenalin
I love public speaking. I’m not one of those people who gets filled with dread standing up in front of a crowd. In fact, the bigger the crowd the better. I guess at that point I’m classically extroverted. It’s a rush. Preaching is the thing that excites me most about vocational ministry. It’s not that I think I’m good at it. I’m not. I’m not bad – this isn’t an exercise in false modesty. You’d hope with a journalism degree I’d be ok at stringing some words together. But there are a few things I struggle with. But this isn’t a post about today’s sermon.1
I’m wondering about the long term effects of the adrenalin rush I get every time I preach. I love it. For me it’s like sky diving or extreme sports. The act of getting up in front of people – regardless of what I’m actually saying. I love MCing stuff as well.
Will I get addicted to it? Is that why preachers sometimes travel the globe preaching? Does this pose long term risks to my health? Most importantly, I’m wondering how sustainable my Sunday afternoons are going to be with the post adrenalin crash. Man. What goes up sure comes down. By about 2pm I can hardly keep my eyes open. I go blank. All that energy that I gain in the morning as I get ready to preach (I reckon the adrenalin kicks in at about 8am when I’m preaching at a 9:30 service) drains out, and takes whatever reserves I have with it. I’m pretty sure the adrenalin is what gives other people preacher’s belly – though for some it’s doubtless channelled as fear rather than exuberance.
I’d love to know how others go on the adrenalin front – is the Sunday arvo crash a common thing? Not having a night service anymore seems like such a good innovation on the days I’ve preached in the morning.
1Today’s sermon was mostly good. The last little application bit felt a little tacked on, and I really wasn’t sure where to go once I’d established that I didn’t think the passage was about sexual ethics, but rather about seeking God’s kingdom. So I said that. I talked about commitment. I tied it to Jesus (which was easy because of Matthew’s genealogy). I compared the righteousness of Tamar with the unrighteousness of Judah. But blah. Blah. Blah. That’s how I felt about the last fifth of my talk.
My other little bit of self critique (and I’ll post the audio for this sermon when I get it) is that I’m much more engaging (in my opinion) when I’m illustrating and telling a story entirely in my own words, as I would naturally. And in most of these cases I leave the script behind. At times I feel like I suppress my personality a little in the writing of my talks and I end up cold and robotic rather than talking how I would normally talk. Actually, I don’t sound robotic, I sound like a journalist, not a real person. On the plus side, all the old ladies tell me I speak clearly and audibly. I don’t write an essay – I try to write the way I talk, but I suspect I haven’t beaten out the writing for TV part of my previos training. There’s something just not quite right. It’s like I’m preaching in black and white rather than colour too. For the most part. Or at least that’s how I feel. Feel free to chime in if you heard me this morning (or once you’ve listened to the audio).
Preaching tomorrow
On Onan the Barbarian.
Here’s a wordle. See if you can figure out what my big idea is.
Westboro v Anonymous: Round 2
Well. Time for an update. The other day I posted about this web deathmatch. Then it seemed like Anonymous had washed their hands of the initial threat. Anonymous claimed Westboro had set this up as a bit of a honey trap to harvest IP addresses from Anonymous users. I was going to post an update then, but then I thought I might ride it out a little longer. Plus, Westboro’s sites had been down for a little while.
Here’s the initial Anonymous response:
Because I figure if you hassle Anonymous for a while you’re going to wake the giant. Anonymous claim another hacker has taken down the sites. Now, Anonymous have acted – watch this…
This video is pretty funny. Anonymous hack Westboro live. During the interview. They put this message up on Westboro’s site.
Westboro think they’re “Mount Zion” and “prophets”… who can’t be shut up.
I’m sure this isn’t the end of this…
Bieber Fever: My wife is funny
My wife is pretty against things posted online that start with “my wife is” and end with a husband spamming the world about how awesome their wife is. We get it. You love your wife and she is awesome. That’s great. It’s why you’re married.
But my wife is going to see Justin Bieber’s 3D movie. She doesn’t know it yet. But that’s her punishment for signing me up to receive Justin Bieber’s ever popular twitter feed in my Google Reader. She’s funny, but this joke may have backfired.
She loves a little bit of Justin. She sings his hit song that goes “Baby, Baby, Baby Oh” when she thinks I’m not listening. She’s been looking forward to the movie for a while. I have a photo to prove it.
My wife is funny. And hot. We’re going to plant a mega church. Justin Bieber will be our “Worship Director”…
How to organise your bookshelf
We picked up a couple of new bookshelves on eBay over the holidays. So now we have space. Lots of space. For new books. Because, you know. New books are where it’s at. Although now I have Logos and the Kindle new books will be squarely in the “2nd hand purchases from garage sales” category, or the “huge donation of books to college” category.
Anyway. That’s neither here nor there. This is how to organise a bookshelf:
Via Kottke, I think. I was actually a little disappointed that this was really cool, and not at all a tutorial on how to organise your bookshelf.
Yes: Sheen finally kills 2.5 Men, No: The Biggest Loser is still alive
There are very few shows that I actively go out of my way to watch bits of just so that I can hate on them in an educated fashion. Biggest Loser and Two and a Half Men.
One is finally dead. Charlie Sheen’s self-destructing antics were finally enough to kill it. Though I doubt that will stop Channel 9 showing endless reruns in Australia. He has these odd delusions of grandeur too – this quote, from the Time magazine story:
“”Last I checked, Chaim [the Jewish writer of his series he also said some anti-Semitic stuff about], I spent close to the last decade effortlessly and magically converting your tin cans into pure gold. And the gratitude I get is this charlatan chose not to do his job, which is to write…”
That’s one down.
The Biggest Loser used to be good. It’s a reality show with real promise, and real benefit, to its contestants and its viewers. But not anymore. Now it’s a cash cow that Channel 10 is milking, Master Chef style. With scant regard to its viewers. Never has the statement that the audience is not the customer, but the commodity, rung more true than when Channel 10, seeking to wring every last dollar out of its advertisers, featured a challenge last night that gratuitously featured contestants chucking 600mL Mount Franklin water bottles onto a cart that was then pulled across a field. This exercise didn’t look like exercise at all. I am not going to go and buy a tonne of water bottles and pull them around by rope on an oval to get fit. And the contestants shouldn’t have to lose their dignity in order to shift a few more units of water. I hope Mount Franklin paid a mint for that placement.
But that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is how contrived and over-produced the show has become. The producers are trying to milk every little bit of emotion from the contestants with these bisarre, clearly set-up, monologues. And these contestants are dumb. You have to be a little on the less than intelligent side to grow to 200kg. Surely. But the Red team in this series can’t string a cohesive sentence together to save themselves. So last night, when one guy won a challenge that would see his morbidly obese brother re-enter the competition after they’d tactically put him up for elimination thinking nobody would vote for the fattest guy, walked into the middle of the room and said “I dedicate this win to my brother” – and it was just an odd bit of over dramatisation with no sense of timing. I challenge you to watch every statement those guys say and find something that isn’t repeated, at the behest of a producer, with some overly dramatic affection, or just bumblingly incoherent. It’s a train wreck.
Then, we had the cancer survivor saying that she had never been happier than she was now – and that she’d never really opened up about her cancer until she had the chance to talk to her personal trainer in front of a national audience. Dumb. Really dumb. It’s like the producers said to themselves. You know what. This contestant mentioned that she had cancer in her application to come on the show, so in weeks 3, 6 and 7 we’re going to ham that up a little and get her to film a vignette about what being a cancer survivor is like. We’ll get people to cry. And then they’ll watch more and we can roll around in piles of monies. New bills only. Crisp. Like lettuce. And we will eat caviar and drink sparkling Mount Franklin while our audience gets dumber.
The worst, and most cynical move, from the producers is, I think, new this season. They now end every episode on a cliffhanger. Mid challenge. So you don’t know who wins unless you tune in the next day. This flagrant disregard to viewers, and their decision to invest time watching the ads that companies have chosen to purchase in the scheduled timeslot, is just nasty. And it’s sure to backfire. They’ve jumped the shark. The only way they could jump the shark more obviously would be to take the fat contestants to Sea World. Ostensibly because of the joke about always taking a fat person swimming. And then to, in a slow montage, get each contestant to waterski in a shark infested pool and take them over a jump to show them how far they’ve come. That they’re no longer fatties, but that they can fly. The saddest part is that these contestants are losing their beef while becoming pieces of meat for the populace to enjoy in snack sized bites.
Return to Sender: Space monkeys and transitive verbs
Long term readers will know that I surprisingly regularly receive emails that aren’t meant for me. I’m not talking Nigerian Scams either. I know plenty about them. Previously this has brought us such stories as the Washington University Essay Project and the Make Me A Mexican challenge.
It happened again today.
Good afternoon Mr Campbell
Thank you for your telephone call concerning your intereset in obtaining a pre-owned Ford Transit 17 seat minibus.
I have attached our latest list of pre-owned minibuses for your information.
If you require any further help or assistance then please feel free to contact me.
Kind regards
Steve Newby
This email came with an attached catalogue. Now, unless I was talking on the phone to a UK car dealer in my sleep, this wasn’t me.
Here’s my response.
Hi Steve,
Great to hear from you!
Though I don’t recall our telephone call. I’m very interested in obtaining a fleet of Ford Transits. But I’m actually after the 24 seat version because they will convert more easily into the spaceship I would like to build. I think if I weld together 18 Ford Transits with 24 seats each I’ll be able to take 431 monkeys into space with me (I’d be the driver, so that would be the 432 total passengers).
I may need to get a couple of extra transits to carry supplies. I imagine I need lots of bananas to feed that many monkeys, if they turned to cannibalism they’d doubtless get mad monkey disease and the consequences, in space, would be catastrophic. Or perhaps monkeystrophic. I don’t like cats.
So if you could draw me up a quote on 22 x 24 Ford Transits that would be much appreciated. They’d have to be the rocket fuel versions, I plan to pipe together the fuel tanks in sequence to power my trip to space. I don’t mind what year they are – so long as they are all the same.
I’m wondering if actions performed in space in a Ford Transit would be an intransitive verb? or a transitive verb? Do you know anything about the niceties of grammar?
Perhaps if you have the phone number for the guy who gave you this email address you could call him, and tell him to stop giving out the wrong address. Even if this email does get me a step closer to going into space (serendipitous, what?) it’s a little annoying having to take time out of my busy, world conquering, schedule to answer random emails from random people on the other side of the world.
I’m from Australia. Do you know what side of the road people drive on in space? I’d prefer right hand drive transits if you have them.
I really like the clip art “sold” sign graphics. Could you send me the clip art file you used? I’d love to use it on seat allocations so that when the monkeys book their historic spots on my maiden voyage there is no confusion.
If you can find me the vans I’m after, I would like to offer you a spot on my maiden voyage in lieu of payment.
Regards,
Nathan Campbell
(not whoever you thought this was)
Here’s my spaceship design. With two of the pilots.
I’ll send it to him if he replies.
Why I bought Logos not Accordance
If you’re a Bible College student, minister, or just generally interested in purchasing some top quality Bible software for Mac – then I suggest you read this post alongside this post from two days ago. Buying Bible software, especially if you’re a student, is a big budgetary decision. Thanks to a job I lined up over the college break I was in a position to spend some money on some software that’ll hopefully make Greek, Hebrew, and essay writing a little less arduous this year.
The Situation
My wife and I are both studying full time at Bible College (Queensland Theological College). We are both, predominantly, Mac users. We both have iPhones. And one of the other pre-conditions in my negotiations with my wife re taking a job over summer was that if the new iPad looks good, I’ll get one. So finding software that plays nice with Macs and their offspring was a factor. I also have a desktop PC at home that I don’t use as much as I used to. But that I still like. Especially if I’m playing with any design stuff.
So right off the bat I ruled out BibleWorks – because I wanted a native solution. I don’t like parallel operating systems or emulators. I don’t know why. It just seems to add an extra degree of difficulty.
The Hive Mind
I didn’t want to make a purchase decision of this magnitude on my own. I don’t like the idea of buying anything without some idea of what I’m getting my hands on. My church history lecturer has probably the world’s biggest brain. And he recommended Logos. He’s not the computer geek type (though he does run Logos on his netbook, iPad, and office computer – he only got the iPad at Christmas time). He had no complaints about speed. Because he is a real person, not somebody who wants everything at the tip of their fingers immediately. My college principal uses Accordance, he’s a Mac man, and it was chosen for him by the tech guru at Tyndale House, where he was previously employed. He’s very happy with it – and says, alongside his Diogenes Greek software, the program has significantly reduced the time taken to conduct language work (and he works a fair bit in that sphere – his PhD involved research into just about every extant written work from Corinth and Alexandria (and this was BC – before computers)). So that’s one all. My friend Jeremy Wales also uses Logos, and his brain is almost as big as our church history lecturer’s.
Not content with these recommendations from friends who used one, or the other, I put the call out to Facebook and Twitter. I love Web 2.0. I got a great string of responses from both. The Twitter responses were particularly in favour of Accordance because the @accordance account retweeted my tweet. Here are some notable tweetsponses:
- @nm_campbell I tried both but rather Accordance. I just wish Accordance worked better on a PC. But on a mac -Accordance!
- @nm_campbell I’ve had Accordance for years and love it. Developers are very active in the community and quick to listen to user requests.
- @nm_campbell If working in original languages, @AccordanceBible hands down. If not, depends on your needs.
- @nm_campbell I assume you have a Mac. Whatever you decide, be assured that you will not make a mistake if these two are your choices.
- @nm_campbell accordance is better for getting into the text (faster too). Logos is better if you want tons of books and commentaries.
- @nm_campbell went with @AccordanceBible because it was what I needed: fast and without a ton of stuff I never use. Both are good though.
- (from @accordancebible) @nm_campbell we’re also going to be in Brisbane for a training seminar May 9th. Great opp to learn from the best http://t.co/h4kZ6hR
- @nm_campbell using Acc since 5.x(?) & used Logos in Seminary. Hate Acc’s UI, but LOVE results. Indispensable: it’s like having X-ray vision!
- @nm_campbell you may want to check out this forum post. Users chiming in on the reasons they chose @accordancebible http://t.co/3xbXWGh
- @nm_campbell in case you haven’t read it, this piece is good, too: http://t.co/EQs1H8I
Happy campers. Nobody really has anything negative to say about either product. Which is a good sign. Accordance has a good rep for being amazingly speedy. And both companies seem to have embraced social media marketing in a big way. I was in no way prepared for what happened next. But first. To the responses on Facebook.
- We went with Accordance. Has been stress-free thus far.
- Whatever you decide, buy the biggest library you can on first purchase.It’s the incremental pieces where it gets expensive. Buying Greek and then Hebrew (for example) is much dearer than getting them all in one hit.
-
I can’t comment on accordance. But with Logos you need to start with scholars at a minimum for original languages study, lower levels come with only very low level tools and supporting databases for this type of work. Original Languages library is also ok, but it is limited in breadth of resources e.g. no commentaries so hence scholars is a better starting point. The negative side of base scholars is while it has breadth for a more general purpose library it is limited in grammars etc and you need to go for silver scholars to pick up the broad range of grammars etc
Logos also has an iPhone 4 app, and a Android App is under development so you can access the majority of your library on the go ( a few publisher’s were holding out on licensing rights for users to access both on computer and mobile platforms). Logos also has a web platform under development so you can access your library from any terminal that has access to the internet ( http://biblia.com/ ). No extra charge for access your library from either of these platforms. Logos also allows you to use your library from either MAC or Windows, you don’t have to pay to switch between platforms.
And of course there is also an iPad app as well which you can access your library from… And they do offer the option of a 12 month payment plan on your purchase so you don’t have to pay for the full package all in one hit…
A couple of blogs I know that do comparisons between these pieces of software are:
http://bibleandtech.blogspot.com/
http://www.biblicalexegesis.org/ - Depends what you want it for. Accordance was made for language work, and works better than Logos at that. Logos was made initially for reading online, so does that better. Both added the other option but do their native task best. I generally hate reading books on the computer, but you have a kindle so might not be an issue. In terms of books I much prefer when sermoning to have a heap of commentaries out lying everywhere for comparison. Plus, any books should last the extent of my ministry. I don’t care about digital storage in this instance. That is all.
- It’s worth considering how commercialized logos is, too: the app’s homepage, their emails, their twitter feed are all pushing more resources all the time.If you struggle with self-control on book purchases, this could be unhelpful.I’ve found logos to be easier and more intuitive to work with, but there’s a new version of accordance I haven’t tried yet: maybe it’s easier.
- It’s worth chatting to the sales people at accordance – they’re very helpful, and can give you an idea around current and upcoming titles.
- Bible Works was the rage when i was at college. has it fallen out of favour?
-
Bibleworks is still kicking strong, but to run on a MAC you need to use virtualization software. Logos and Accordance run native on MAC. Bibleworks and WORDSearch are now just starting to work together, with modules now being to developed to run on both platforms (only 6 resources so far). Bibleworks is great for OL but lacks the breadth and depth of Logos, so they are clearly looking for a way to address that , which is also indication of how far Logos has come in its OL tools and databases, that Bibleworks now feels they need to expand their business model beyond being OL.
These two strings of responses gave me a lot to think about. And at that point I turned to my trusty steed. This blog. To see if any of my readers had any advice, or experience. And wow. When I said that both companies have embraced marketing via social media in a big way. I mean it. Very sharp. Reps from both Accordance and Logos joined the discussion to make sure that any of the misconceptions created by any of the previous comments from users were cleared up. And, in an even more impressive step, Dan from Logos emailed me with some personalised (and very Godly) advice. He basically sold the other guy’s product. Here’s a snippet (he said he would prefer me not to post his whole email).
“All I can say about the choice is, why choose? Why not get what you need from both? Even if you decided to go with Accordance, Logos has over 12,000 titles that you could pick and choose from. Our software engine is free, so you can just buy the titles you want.”
I think that’s an incredible example of graceful sales and marketing. He basically, in that paragraph, has encouraged me not to blow my money on stuff I won’t use, and suggested I go with the other guy as well. Which, in a bizarre way, was probably the biggest factor in my decision to use Logos exclusively at this point. It’s quite possible that I’ll decide I want a faster language tool and end up getting a hold of Accordance. It has a very enthusiastic fan base.
But the conversation in the comment thread is enlightening – and I think highlights the real problem I had with Accordance. Accordance is designed for the Mac. By all accounts it is intuitive to use and seamless in its implementation. Its website is not. Its website looks like the software is designed for the PC. I made the comment in the last post that the Logos website looks like a product designed for PC and marketed for Mac, while Accordance is the other way around. It is just really difficult to intuitively figure out how to add bits and pieces to the package, and clunky looking. There are a lot of misconceptions going around about Accordance – as evidenced by the times their company rep stepped in to correct misinformation in that thread. Even for Accordance users. And I think part of the problem is that information is so much harder to come by on their website. Neither site is perfect at this point, and the signal to noise problem of throwing my search out to everybody and being influenced by their answers may have made the process of finding information more difficult. But in order to find out whether I could install the software on my wife’s laptop as well as my own was a matter of finding an answer to that specific question in the FAQ section (which I admittedly found pretty easily by typing licensing into the search box – though the answer on that page suggests that if both of us are studying full time we both have to buy licenses, but I got a different vibe in the comments on my post). There’s no obvious statement about licensing restrictions anywhere on any of the product pages, which would have made the process a little simpler. I made a couple of comments about Logos being more extensible in the meta of that last post – which others disagreed with. But I ran a couple of little tests – looking to add specific books, or commentary series to the software – and here are the results of my query (looking for commentaries by Ben Witherington III): Accordance v Logos – in both cases I simply used the search box on the site. I’ve switched over to digital distribution (ok, I still like the tangibility of a book – but the convenience of digital means I’m buying many more resources electronically – if either of theses platforms offered some sort of Kindle support I’d be absolutely sold, though an iPad with Kindle and Logos installed will fix all of that).
Why I ultimately chose Logos
Rick from Accordance did a great job in the comment thread allaying concerns I had about the Accordance platform. Some of my initial objections to Accordance (licensing for both Robyn and I across all our computers, the availability of other resources, and the nature of the program – ie that it wasn’t just a language tool that had tacked on a library). I essentially decided that Logos and Accordance were both equally viable products. Offering a great service to people wanting to study the Bible.
These were the factors in my decision, all other things being equal:
- Price – I was convinced by the wisdom of friends who suggested going for the biggest bundle I could afford in the initial purchase, and Logos offers a 30% discount, which mean that the Silver Scholars package came within the ball park of the rack price for the Accordance bundle I was looking at, and the rack price for the base level Scholars pack in Logos.
- Technology – In the end having a PC to throw in the mix with two Macs was a factor. I could have used an emulator on my PC, but I just don’t want technologically clunky solutions. Especially when it comes to support issues. Having a third party piece of software as a middle man is no fun.
- Upgradability – I am convinced that Logos’ strength as a distribution channel for further works is greater than Accordance’s (I’m convinced Accordance is faster and better suited to the Mac environment it’s designed for).
- Marketing. Logos wins the marketing war. And I’m a marketer at heart. I switched to Apple for its aesthetic as much as for the technology. Form just edges out function for me. And that’s a personal preference.
I want to thank both David and Rick from Accordance, and Dan from Logos for the way they carried out the conversation here, and for taking an interest in seeing students like me get the software that suits. And I’d urge you to read their comments and make your own decision when it comes to these products on careful research, and thinking about your needs. That was the best, and most consistent, advice I received in the process.
Bible Study Software: To buy, or not to buy, and if to buy, which to buy
Accordance, or Logos. That is the question.
One of the perks of having slaved away over a hot computer over the holidays in my holiday job (more on that later) is that I can afford to invest in some Bible study software that will hopefully make my attempts to grapple with Greek, Hebrew, and essay writing, a little bit easier.
There are three options out there (fourth if you include just using the interwebs).
I’ve basically ruled out BibleWorks – because getting it to work on a Mac requires clunky parallel operating systems and I pretty much flat out refuse to do that – why would I go back to an inferior operating system? If I were a Windows user I may well go with it – because it has the benefit of being a cheap and easy language parser. But, because I’m a superficial marketing driven purchaser I can’t get past the ugly website and shoddy looking, WIndows 95esque user interface.
Next option, by price, is Accordance – and specifically the Scholars Premier + Library Premier option, currently on special for $599. Now. Accordance is designed for Mac. But I don’t like its website. It was designed for language work, and kind of tagged on the library stuff later. Twitter loves it. I put a call out yesterday and almost every response I got (possibly because the @accordance account retweeted my tweet) was in favour of Accordance.
The option I’m currently leaning towards is Logos. Logos just looks schmick. And it has multiplatform support in built. And the ability to add module after module of good stuff. Accordance has modules as well – but it doesn’t have the same publishing base (as far as I can tell) that Logos obviously offers. The base level Scholars pack is $629. It just looks schmick too. And as a marketer I like that. It looks like a Bible software package marketed by Apple, rather than made for Apple.
My college principal, a Mac user, uses Accordance, while possibly the widest reading lecturer at college uses Logos. Both have suggested their product of choice is a good choice.
Should I flip a coin?
Some helpful links if you’re facing this decision:
Arthur wrote a good little post pondering the merits of these packages here. There’s a lot of bloat – but the bloat might be useful if ever I do decide to pursue further study (a possible option in my mind).