Bible App for iPhone

Apple’s first smart phone was called an iPhone. It was first released on June 29, 2007. In July of 2008, Apple opened the App store where users could download Apps that would run on the iPhone.

In December of 2008, Litchfield Associates launched the very first Bible App for iPhone on the App store. It was an immediately hit and thousands of users downloaded the very first iPhone Bible App on iPhone. That iPhone Bible app was a very basic App that included the Voice of Alexander Scourby, who the Chicago Tribune said , “had the greatest voice ever recorded”. The iPhone Bible App, also included a scrolling text of the King James Bible, but the user had to manually scroll to keep up with the Bible Audio that was being read by Alexander Scourby.

This was the first time since 1611 that Bible readers could access the Bible differently than the Bible readers did in 1611. This was the very first time Bible readers could hear and read the Bible at the same time in a small device that they held in their hand. That type of sensory input was called a bimodal experience, since users where using two different sensory inputs in the brain by reading and hearing simultaneously.

Did you know that reading and hearing something, conveys the meaning to the brain in two different ways? Studies have determined that when people read and hear something at the same time, their understanding, comprehension and retention is greatly increased. The introduction of the Bible App on iPhone, was the first time that people could do that on one hand held small device!

According to US Department of Education there are 32,000,000 adults in the US that cannot read and are functionally illiterate, that’s 14% of the US population. Twenty-one percent (21%) read below a 5^th grad level. The biggest reason the majority of illiterate people in the US want to learn to read, is so that they can read the Bible. A teaching technique used by illiterate societies, is to have people get a book, and the recording of that book, and listen to the recording and follow along in the book. As you can imagine, this was very difficult, because the use had to manage a book and audio device. With the advent of the Bible App on iPhone, the illiterate had both the audio and text in one small device they could hold in their hand. Many illiterate people learned to read by using the Bible App on iPhone.

If you know anyone who is illiterate, or has a hard time reading and has an iPhone, consider gifting them with the Bible App on iPhone. It would be a gift of life that would keep on giving. If you don’t have one, gift one to yourself, download it today and start experiencing the Bible in a whole new way.

totus testa pio io

Chicago Tribune Article About Alexander Scourby

Chicago Tribune February 22, 1990 Journalist: Sandy Bauers A Knight-Ridder Newspaper

Alexander Scourby is reputed to have been the world`s best audio-book narrator, bar none. He is heralded as having the greatest voice ever recorded.
Scourby, a radio, film and stage actor, read 422 books for the Talking Books program of the American Foundation for the Blind, including Homer`s “Iliad,” Tolstoy`s “War and Peace,” Joyce`s “Ulysses,” Faulkner`s “The Sound and the Fury” and the King James Version of the Bible.
Although Scourby considered Talking Books his most important work, he also made several recordings for Spoken Arts and Listening Library, and it`s well worth the purchase price to hear the master.
For Spoken Arts, he read Walt Whitman`s “Leaves of Grass”, Edgar Allan Poe`s “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and several titles in the Voices of History collection of famous speeches.
For Listening Library, Scourby read “The Great Gatsby and Other Stories,” “The Stories of Ernest Hemingway” and some of the poems on “A Treasury of Great Poetry.”
What made Scourby so great? People who try to describe it generally stutter through glowing adjectives and adverbs, concluding that it`s an intangible, indefinable quality. But they all agree on one thing: He was a man with a truly rare gift.
For Listening Library`s Tim Ditlow, Scourby`s readings are “totally believable, and I`m totally transported” to the period of the story. He cites “the warmth, the resonance” of Scourby`s voice and concludes, “If I could name exactly what it was, I`d probably diminish it. When you hear him, it goes right to your heart.”
Ditlow`s father, Anthony, is blind and was well-acquainted with Scourby`s readings when he founded the Listening Library in 1958. What the elder Ditlow likes is Scourby`s subtlety: “He never over-emphasized, but you knew at all times all the various scales of emotion. I always used to say Alex could read the phone book and make it interesting.”
Comparing Scourby to some of today`s best audio-book readers, Anthony Ditlow said, “They`re all good, but they`re just good. They`re not superb.” At the American Foundation for the Blind studios in New York City, manager Don Weightman remembers Scourby as “one of a kind.” “We`re talking about an X quality here. What really came across was the fact that he was believable,” Weightman said. “Beautiful voices are a dime a dozen, but when you get the quality of believability, that`s something rare.” Fellow Talking Books reader Flo Gibson, who also reads for her own audio- book company in Washington, said it was Scourby she listened to for inspiration.
His readings “certainly have an elegant quality to them,” she said. “But what I like are his pregnant pauses-he uses his pauses so well. His subtle hints of dialect are superb.”
While most narrators try to “act” a book, raising and lowering their voices when the speaker changes from a man to a woman, Scourby simply changed the rhythm slightly, Gibson said.
People who knew Scourby describe a man meticulous in his research and preparation. For Scourby, Weightman said, the author came first. And for listeners, Scourby comes first.

Bible App for iPhone

Apple’s first smart phone was called an iPhone. It was first released on June 29, 2007. In July of 2008, Apple opened the App store where users could download Apps that would run on the iPhone.

Chicago Tribune Article About Alexander Scourby

Chicago Tribune February 22, 1990 Journalist: Sandy Bauers A Knight-Ridder Newspaper

Chicago Tribune February 22, 1990 Journalist: Sandy Bauers A Knight-Ridder Newspaper