search for a Peoples' Bible app
Kuster, Thomas
Hello friends,
Today I received a request for tech expertise which I am passing on to you in the hope of finding someone who can respond.
WELS Missionary Matt Boehmer, who works from Quito, Ecuador, asked me to find someone who could produce an App that will make available on cell phones the Spanish version of The Peoples’ Bible commentary series.
Goal: find or create an app to enable users of Android phones to easily read the volumes of The Peoples’ Bible (Spanish version) available online in the form of large PDF files.
The publishers have made the Spanish PB available for use in WELS Spanish-speaking missions without copyright restrictions. The 41 volumes are in PDF format and can be downloaded to the phones available throughout Latin America. But the trouble is, the files are large and when downloaded fill up (or overflow) the phone memories typically available, making them unwieldy and difficult to use.
The goal is to build an App that will make the user’s experience more like streaming than downloading the .pdf files. I am imagining something like the bible.is app which streams both audio and text files of Scripture in many languages (you should have this app on your phone! – check it out). The bible.is app lets the user jump directly to any chapter in the Bible for reading the text on the screen. That’s what is wanted in the requested Spanish-language PB app. (bible.is also provides audio of the text being read aloud – something not needed in the requested app but great for bringing Scripture to locations with low literacy rates).
Desired specs:
· App should “stream” text to cell phones from PDF files residing on a remote server.
· It should work on Android phones.
· Inexpensive
· Lightweight
· Bonus if possible: a word-search feature.
There are several PDF readers available, but some cost money and/or are ad-supported, and most have features unnecessary for this use, which complicates them and increases their memory footprint.
If you have any ideas for responding to this request, please reply to me. If I hear from several people, I can put you in touch with each other for possible collaboration.
Thank you for considering this.
Tom Kuster, director
The Christ in Media Institute at Bethany Lutheran College