User:EJSawyer/PocketBible

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PocketBible (formerly known as PalmBible) is an eBook reader application, enhanced for Bible study purposes, developed by Laridian Electronic Publishing.

History
During the 1980's, Craig Rairdin wrote QuickVerse, a Bible-reading application for DOS. Parsons Technology, one of the first software vendors to focus on the vertical market of church software, bought the program from Rairdin in 1988, then hired him to continue its development.

In 1997, Parsons was bought by Brøderbund. Rairdin, still a senior employee, had become intrigued by the fledgling mobile computing market, particularly smart devices such as PDAs. In April 1998, in his spare time, he began writing a Bible reading application for Windows CE. He demonstrated his application to Parsons management, but they were focused on desktop development, and were not interested in pursuing the mobile segment. However, Rairdin discovered that the Brøderbund acquisition had inadvertently severed his non-compete and intellectual property agreements with Parsons, leaving him free to develop the program on his own into a commercially viable product.

On October 21, 1998, Rairdin formally incorporated his new software company, named "Laridian" (derived from a Greek word meaning "small book" ), and the first product, PalmBible, was introduced at the same time. PalmBible was a standalone eBook reader application for Windows CE devices, with features to optimize its use for Bible reading and study.

After Palm, Inc. were granted a trademark on the word "Palm", many vendors were forced to change their product name to avoid infringement. Microsoft changed the name of its PDA platform from "Palm PC" to "Palm-size PC", then to "PocketPC". Likewise, to avoid similar infringement (and to indicate alignment with the Microsoft platform), PalmBible was renamed "PocketBible".

Three versions of PocketBible are in current release. Separate versions are available for Windows Mobile Classic/Windows Mobile Professional (previously "PocketBible for PocketPC") and Windows Mobile Standard (previously "PocketBible for Windows Smartphone"). There is also a version of PocketBible for Windows PCs, which retains the PocketBible name for brand recognition and compatibility reasons.

BookBuilder
Laridian also sells BookBuilder, an eBook content authoring tool (originally developed for Laridian internal use), allowing third-party publication of content for PocketBible and MyBible.

Memorize!
Memorize! is a mobile application for Windows Mobile and PalmOS that assists with memorization of short sections of text. This is particularly useful for memorization of Bible verses. On each platform, Memorize integrates with its corresponding Bible reader (PocketBible or MyBible), if installed, allowing verse text to be imported from an available translation simply by entering the relevant scripture reference.

DailyReader
DailyReader was a mobile application that provided a "daily reading" format for eBooks, for daily Bible study and meditation. Originally released for both PocketPC/Windows Mobile and PalmOS platforms (with hyperlink integration to PocketBible or MyBible), it is no longer available for Windows Mobile, because the same functionality is built into PocketBible version 3.0 and later.