The Inside Scoop: December 2021

Hi friends,

So much can change in a month and guess what?! I have only good news today 😉.

Firstly, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I hope your homes are filled with love, family, and the sweet presence of Jesus during the holidays. This time of year is always special.

A Christmas Miracle

I did an application for the ESV premium Bible translation about six weeks ago. I spent almost two weeks writing and re-writing the application. It was like a giant essay. This application required research, good copy and even my mom helped fix the grammar and language.

Three weeks after completing the form (which was three pages in total of writing) Crossway gave us their approval! All I had to do was sign a contract, pay a nice fee and they send me the .XML file that our developers converted to the correct format to use in Pencil Bible app.

I believe getting the rest of the premium translations will be much easier now 😅

A Gift For You

I think one of my love languages is gifts. I really like to give good gifts. I even bought PB’s head developer a present (that was delivered to his door in the USA).

🎁 So I’m happy to announce that today you can download the Pencil Bible Beta 🎁🎄.

The team worked really hard to have this ready for Christmas.

All you have to do is download Testflight from the Apple app store (using your iPad) and email me (erin@pencilbible.com) and I will add your email to the Testflight app. Once this is done you will receive an email from Apple with a link to download PB! I know it sounds tedious, but it’s the only way to test the app.

We have three translations on it namely the King James, ASV, and WEB versions. Remember we struggled so much with the translations? Sorted 💪.

The app is far from finished so please don’t feel discouraged or that PB is a failure. I’m a perfectionist and designer at heart so no one knows more about all the little bugs and issues than me.

The annotation tools need a lot of work still and are the hardest part of the build. Saving drawings is a little buggy and I know the highlighter flashes when you lift the pencil.

Annotation tools available are:

• Pencil
• Pen
• Highlighter
• Eraser
• Undo / Redo
• Shapes — circle, square, lines

Bible search works, but you have to type at least 5 characters before you can search for a word. This is will be fixed soon.

I know there are lots of design inconsistencies and that will be fixed as well.

If you would like to send me a report with some feedback or suggestions you are more than welcome to. I will take me time to read through them all.

This is very far from the final product and PB will get much better. I promise.

Enjoy and a Merry Christmas 🎄

Erin