hedque courageious galinah
Rosita Westhouse
First off I want to start by saying I love this product. But lately it seems that users like myself (pc/android) have been put on the back burner for the time being. it just seems like far more effort is put into the mac and ios product. Is this something that will change in the future?
I'll weigh in here. I am one of those who has in no way become disillusioned. I came from BW and use the software for Biblical research and understanding. It had the tools I required and performs every function I need very well. It's toolset is larger than BW's and everything works quite well, all told. Technical support has been prompt, thorough, and effective. The forums (which are not tech support) are on whole useful. I'm quite confident that the vast majority of the user base is in this situation. There are a small, but significant number of people who have needs beyond the original, core functionality of the software. These are the users who drive development. Development is always behind the vision of these users and therein lies the strain. But for those of us who bought a tool that does what we bought it for, our happiness and that of clams is pretty similar.
As a user, my understanding is that 14 will be the same and run on both windows and mac.
android was the last platform to be supported so there is some catching up to be done to bring it in line with ios which is still some way behind the full fat version. (Being an early adopter of android on an htc phone, I moved away from android coz i got fed up with the operating system updates not being available for mine or my wife's phones so i couldnt use updated or new apps.)
but having bought other products from larger market leading organizations in different sectors and then having a bug which made the product unusable for two years or else they take the decision not to support it and its no longer works on the latest operating system, i think the accordance team are doing a good job and im certainly not disillusioned.
Each tuesday morning there is eager anticipation wondering if the resources i want have been added to the store and on offer which is usually followed by disappointment as they have not yet been added. But i have had some great bargains over the years. So Mildly impatient, but then patience is a virtue! so just think of the benefits we are getting on soooooo many levels.
I'd hold a similar view to @ScottDF. I see Accordance as a capable and mature software tool on most platforms (Android being the one platform that has stagnated/clearly is less developed than others). For me the power of accordance has to do more with the library I have built up over time than the software itself. I am looking forward to the release of 14 that I hope will see fixes for some outstanding bugs I know about (dark mode on windows).
i understand your viewpoints. I guess I wouldn't say disillusioned. the Windows version does everything I need I just wish the UI was a little more modern looking. Android is where most of my frustrations lay. I didn't really have a choice when it came to software as accordance is what I received through my seminary for my MDiv program. I understand that there has been some turnover in the android development department, but I think it's been almost a year since the last android update. This is frustrating to me as I'm constantly on the go and rely pretty heavily on my phone and tablet.
I am not disillusioned but frustrated with the Android development. I love Accordance and use it almost daily. I use Accordance on both PC and Mac. The only thing that really frustrates me with the desktop app is the syncing which I understand will be fixed in Accordance 14. The android app is a different story. It will be a year this week since the last update. Not only is it not updated, but questions on the forums about updates are rarely given. I understand the turnover but we have been told for a good while that notes and other features are coming, but we have seen little progress.
It's sad to see how many users are so docile. They've been conditioned to expect unresponsiveness and to embrace subpar development. A company may think that flatterers make for an ideal user base, but this is hurtful to the company's overall health and growth.
Does the management stop to consider how many more customers/fans they would have if they would accept the existence of flaws (i.e. not "shoot the messenger") and act to meet the challenges to overcome them? Please look up "opportunity cost."
So much of a user's experience is related to workflow and habits. At the same time, we have been conditioned to expect parity everywhere. For example, I do not default to mobile near as much as others. If all you use is mac, pc or iphone, then maybe you are quite pleased with Accordance and have a higher toleration for the hard work of software development. If android is your major interface, then you are having a different experience. I have even asked google "What's the Best Bible software" and get "I can't help with that".
Accordance's measured, fierce insistence on presenting Scripture to us in a variety workflow options, raises the bar of our expectations. Maybe it's an unintended consequence. The product is SO GOOD that we find ourselves to be SO IMPATIENT.
It would also be helpful for module corrections to be tracked publicly. Sometimes I forget if, upon encountering an error in a module I use frequently, I've already submitted a correction. I know the module development staff has a lot of work to do, and sometimes I hesitate submitting corrections that I may have already submitted because that's ten minutes I'm taking away from them that could be used to do something more productive than track down an already-fixed correction (or, even worse, one that was rejected for whatever reason and will never be fixed).
Absolutely right. Been using Accordance on a Mac since before 1.0 and have no complaints. I does what I need done and does it well. It was "light years ahead of the competition" when it was first released. I am not complaining about it and currently using it every day. BTW, the most significant advancement from a linguistic perspective is Robert D. Holmstedt's Hebrew Syntactic Database.**
I don't think users are soft on Accordance. Jump around to any piece of software and even the big ones. The same criticisms are true of these large companies, if not more so. Google, Microsoft, other large Bible software companies. It's all the same. There's more pressure (read: sales) for putting out more features than there is fixing every bug (if that were even possible). Accordance may have bugs and short-comings, but I'm much more productive with it than without it. I hope the next version brings more features and more fixes, but it will also introduce new bugs (it's inevitable).
I fully agree with you. I am not in any way against Accordance, but as a Windows user I have noticed that the Windows version is always last to start working or to be updated. The Targums wordmap is now finally working well on Windows for which I am very thankful. But it was more than a year later than the Mack version.
When I upgraded to Accordance 13, I could not even do simple Hebrew searches without numerous problems. Searching for more than one Hebrew Lemma was not even possible. I reported about 5 serous bugs and reverted back an earlier version. Months later these bugs were finally fixed. Thank you!
And the Accordance videos are nearly always done with the Mack version to show off, often long before the features actually start working in windows. Past examples include the Targums wordmap, LXX vs. Hebrew searches, Automatic construct searches, accent searches, searching for more than one Lemma, Letters searches, etc.
Yes, I know we all have modules and features we'd like, but the developers have lives too. They work insanely hard to produce for us and they have not forsaken us. I long for Accordance 14, but I know it's worth the wait...maybe there's a sermon illustration in that ?
If accordance 14 is checked the same way as 13, it means that Mack users will have a working version 14 by the end of the year, and we will have to wait till 2025 - 3 more years before we can expect Accordance 14 to be virtually as good on Windows as on Mack.
Originally there was a request thread for windows beta testers. from memory, If you are added you will receive an nda by email i seem to remember and once confirmed you will see a new section appear in the forum.
I am a new user and only been using Accordance for a few weeks. I will note that when I looked at Logos I was displeased with the experience, so much appeared for show and advertising. I'd rather functional software over pretty any-day. Accordance fits my simple needs very well and I consider myself a beginner in Biblical studies and research with such a system.
I agree with this statement. Support have been very patient as I fumbled along clicking things outside of intended use and crashing the program. Eventually I annoyed them when protesting why Development cannot regression test more for Windows and I was then kindly sent to the forums to repent
"I know you test it very well for Mack, but not always for Windows" [Anonymous]
I am undecided about this. I know a Mac user and their Accordance crashes too, but apparently I pushed mine to its limit more than they have and they have used it for a long time. I develop software (everything from coding for Unix to these days of SQL Azure Synapse etc) and also as an ex. electronics engineer my personality type is to investigate and touch everything
I agree. I have since watched the training videos and customised Accordance. My experience now is significantly better. Crashes are far fewer and I live with them. When used as suggested, Accordance does a fairly good job. I still trip it up, but I live with it because in the scheme of things it is minor now. I still would love to see stability improved, especially for new users, but it is no longer as bad as when I first started using it. Perhaps I should re-frame what it is to be considered stable. Our experiences bias our opinions.
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