To everyone else, a friend in my online community at TheologyWeb just passed away from brain cancer and we are in mourning and making arrangements for flowers and the like, so I will be doing the drawing tomorrow. I apologize for the delay.

This is the most comprehensive and detailed through review of Accordance (and most any other Mac software) I have ever read.

I even learned some things I did not know about my Accordance program (still at Library 6 I think).

Thanks much for the review & hope to win the giveaway to version 8!

Manfred Schmidt said:Summary: you spend a lot of money over time in updates and maintenance. Most of the time this is not justified. (Accordance is a great program though.)

As I have only had the program less than a year and was provided the 8.0 update, I cannot speak to this. But it seems to me that if the upgrades offer no benefit to the user, they are not forced to upgrade.

As a long term user of Accordance I was overwhelmed by this article. It suffers from the same illness that the otherwise great Accordance website has: Too much detailed information, no clear and precise overviews.

I have my own philosophy on reviews. IMHO 99% of the reviews on the Net on any product seem like they spent all of one day with a product. I just cannot do that. The tremendous detail will not be the right fit for some readers, but with this review, and my prior Toast review, the response has been very positive. I try to write the kind of review I would be looking for when trying to decide on a product. I know and understand that it is too much for some, but this is the niche I have chosen.

Updating is a nightmare with all the available options and packages – I never got it right. In the end I always had to write an email asking what would be applicable in my case and what the best option would be. This is the only prgram that I ever had to do this.

Again, I cannot speak to that as I am fairly new. However, to be fair, why would you expect to do this with any other program when there aren’t really choices? Unless I am misunderstanding you, and you mean no other Bible program. If you do mean the latter, that is not my experience. The upgrades and installation of every single Bible program I have ever used has been confusing as I expressed above. However,I know that the developer is very helpful in assisting the user in deciding. It is unfortunate, but I think that is just the nature of this type of program.

Another setback of the Accordance philosophy: It costs you a lot of “maintenance” money! Updates of existing databases usually cost you, even if they are only correcting mistakes etc. Then they change the database, e.g. for the Hebrew module – guess who pays for it? If you want to stay on top there is a constant drain on your budget …

I have to plead ignorance here.

And with the program itself: Minor improvements are labeled as major ( e.g. 7.1 to 7.2, or 8.0 to 8.1), but at least they are free) and version jumps (like from 7 to are often not justified – annoying when you think you have to pay for them!

And some ignorance here, though I started with 7, and finished with 8, and felt the improvements were significant. If I were a current 7 user, I would not have resented paying for the upgrade to 8. Anything prior to this, I have no knowledge.

But I appreciate the work done in this article!

Thank you. I hope that Oaktree implements some of my suggestions, particularly the global preference change pet peeve that I mentioned repeatedly.

As a long term user of Accordance I was overwhelmed by this article. It suffers from the same illness that the otherwise great Accordance website has: Too much detailed information, no clear and precise overviews. Updating is a nightmare with all the available options and packages – I never got it right. In the end I always had to write an email asking what would be applicable in my case and what the best option would be. This is the only prgram that I ever had to do this.

Another setback of the Accordance philosophy: It costs you a lot of “maintenance” money! Updates of existing databases usually cost you, even if they are only correcting mistakes etc. Then they change the database, e.g. for the Hebrew module – guess who pays for it? If you want to stay on top there is a constant drain on your budget …

And with the program itself: Minor improvements are labeled as major ( e.g. 7.1 to 7.2, or 8.0 to 8.1), but at least they are free) and version jumps (like from 7 to are often not justified – annoying when you think you have to pay for them!

But I appreciate the work done in this article!

Greg

Your review is great – I’ve learned heaps! – thank you so much for the time and effort.

Deborah

Kevin said:Thanks for the review. So much I haven’t tapped into. I don’t understand why the tutorial DVD doesn’t come automatically with the software. Living in hawaii makes it tough to get to a training seminar.) I have Accordance 8.0 Scholar’s collection but not the tagged NASB. What would adding this help me do? Looking forward to putting the program to better use.

Are you sure you don’t have it? I think it is standard with that collection you have. It is called NAS95S. It gives you great information in the Instant Details Box, and of course is a much more updated translation than the KJV.

John Maddocks
Canada