YouVersion Reaches 25 Million Installs

I’ve blogged about YouVersion  multiple times, so when I received yesterday morning’s email update that they had reached more than 25 million mobile devices, I was completely blown away.

The Bible App has now been installed on more than 25 million mobile devices, and they are averaging about 2 million installs each month.

“We aren’t into celebrating numbers just because they’re big, but because of what they represent. In this case, it means millions of people in many different languages in countries around the globe are adding God’s Word to a device they always have nearby. Thanks for sharing verses and the Bible App with people you know,” note officials at YouVersion.

In November, YouVersion introduced bookmarking – a way to mark favorite quotes for the community to help people memorize, share, and remind themselves of special verses. Recently, they reached the 20 million bookmark milestone.

YouVersion is also working on expanding Bible languages it offers and has just added its fifth fully-supported language: Russian. The other four languages supported are Chinese, French, Korean, and German. If you’d like to help make the Bible App available in additional languages, learn more about becoming a volunteer.

The company also announced recent updates for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad like:

• Multiple verse selection: now you can pick several verses at once to copy highlight, bookmark, or share. We’re especially excited about this highly requested feature!
• Highlights: pick your color and mark a verse. Your highlights will sync in any environment that offers highlights.
• Bookmarks: now you can color-code and/or label bookmarks. (Like Parenting = green, Encouragement = yellow, Love = red, etc.)
• Fullscreen mode: on iPhone/iPod touch, double tap the screen to see just the Bible text. Another double tap makes the menus re-appear.
• New navigation: now it’s super simple to get right to the book, chapter, and verse you’re looking for.

I recently transitioned from a Blackberry Tour to a Motorola Droid Incredible 2. I have to say that the Android YouVersion app is quite impressive and rivals the iPhone and iPad in features.

If you don’t already use YouVersion on a digital device, I highly recommend it. What is the number one way you read/use YouVersion for Bible study?

Lauren Hunter is a freelance writer, church technology consultant (http://lhpr.net) and founder of the blog ChurchTechToday (http://ChurchTechToday.com), Technology for Today’s Church.