Can we have a V14 recall?

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Without divulging too much info concerning the beta test period, there was a beta test period for Accordance 14, but the public release seemed to hit shortly after the beta test period was underway (likely to get it in by ETS/SBL and before Thanksgiving).

 

For Accordance 15, my advice to Accordance’s developers would be:

 

1. Start the beta test period a little earlier (give beta testers a chance to report more bugs and Accordance developers a chance to iron out more bugs).

 

2. You can still announce it at ETS/SBL without releasing it at ETS/SBL. Show off a beta of what you have and don’t promise a release date until you have a rock-solid build in place.

 

3. Announce and release an “early access” version of Accordance 15 at ETS/SBL with what some of us discussed above where people could pre-order an “early access” version of Accordance 15 that’s in-between a beta version and a stable public version. it wouldn’t be as buggy as a beta but not as solid as a “general release”.

[Kristin]

15 minutes ago, Nathan Parker said:

1. Start the beta test period a little earlier (give beta testers a chance to report more bugs and Accordance developers a chance to iron out more bugs).

 

Concerning this point, I don't think it would have been practical to give it to beta testers earlier, since it was not ready for beta testing prior, since they seem to have already felt rushed. I think just holding off completely would work better.

 

16 minutes ago, Nathan Parker said:

2. You can still announce it at ETS/SBL without releasing it at ETS/SBL. Show off a beta of what you have and don’t promise a release date until you have a rock-solid build in place.

 

I think that sounds like a great solution.

[Kurt O]

I am committed to Accordance, and NOT at all interested in moving to any other program, does anyone know the market share between any of the Bible software programs?

[jarcher]

17 hours ago, Steven S said:

which probably means there are years, if not decades, of accumulated technical debt.

Unfortunately, for companies like Oaktree, Apple hasn't been particularly helpful either. Oaktree has now gone through two (maybe even three?) architecture shifts with Apple as they've bounced between (Motorola?), PowerPC, Intel, and now Apple silicon. 

Edited November 26, 2022 by jarcher

[Rich]

13 minutes ago, jarcher said:

Unfortunately, for companies like Oaktree, Apple hasn't been particularly helpful either. Oaktree has now gone through two (maybe even three?) architecture shifts with Apple as they've bounced between (Motorola?), PowerPC, Intel, and now Apple silicon. 

 

As a developer, most (particularly the last two) were completely non-issues for most developers.  You just used the new tooling and that was it.  Endian changes around PowerPC were a bit more fun — but were not an issue for most developers (but were for me working on audio software).  I gather most of the current issues really have nothing to do with the underlying CPU architecture (unless the Windows version isn't having any issues?)  

 

I think it's more the complexity of a program that has grown over decades and has a very small development team to try and continue pushing more and more features.  As much as we would like to see continued feature development at the same pace, it's not like they are raking in a bunch more money now than in the past to grow the team to handle the growing needs for refactoring and maintenance at the same time.  

 

I think the answer is just patience — or switch to the platform that has a larger revenue base.  For me, Accordance is still the platform by far that I prefer (for now) — particularly when combined with my serious investment in content that is non-transferable.  I hope that Oaktree can thread the needle on this tricky balance in the future  — and people do remain patient — otherwise we'll be in the same place as the users of Bibleworks in the future — and nobody wants that.

 

 

[Larry Wing]

I installed v14 on one of my Mac computers but quickly uninstalled and went back to v13 since I don't know for sure if the times I do run 14 it will change something in v13. Safety first.

 

I will say I'm disappointed in the number of bugs being reported and kinda expected it when I was following the bug reports in the beta forum and how soon it was released. I couldn't imagine fixing all of them in a matter of a few days.

 

One of my jobs when working was the programmer for our proprietary software and know from experience that when developing something new I had better have 95% confidence to release it and 100% of free time to quickly fix reported bugs.

 

I have a couple other programs I like installed but Accordance is my preferred Bible study program and I will patiently wait for bug fixes. I have no intention to either go elsewhere or think badly about Accordance. While disappointed I have confidence they will do what they can to make it all right.

 

 

[Dennis Solon]

I encountered some of the problems mentioned here. They (most of them) seem to be solved after a hard reboot. 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Adding a few additional comments...

 

1. I don’t think there are any hard-core stats on the marketshare for Bible programs. Logos is definitely the major player, with Accordance being the second major player, just by reason. They’re the two remaining players that have been in the game the longest.

 

2. It’s true that giving access to the beta earlier might not have helped. Without giving any additional details, I would have liked to remained in a beta program a little longer prior to release. When I’ve beta tested Logos in the past, I had the beta for a few months on my system at the minimum before a final release. Even if giving access to an Accordance beta earlier wouldn’t work, just extend the beta program until some major bugs are squashed. 

 

3. Since I don’t work for Accordance (at the moment), I honestly haven’t listened into any internal discussions about Accordance 14, but I don’t see it as any issue with management, and Accordance 14’s rollout hasn’t tarnished Accordance’s image for me. Roy Brown is still involved with Accordance even in his retirement, and there’s plenty of excellent people on staff who have been with Accordance for a while: Rick Mansfield, Richard and Linda Perry, David Lang, etc. I trust them and have complete confidence in both them and Accordance as a company. What I see is Accordance was trying to get Accordance 14 out the door before ETS/SBL ended and before the Thanksgiving holiday. They thought they could pull off a release to pre-order users and it “just work "by that deadline. Unfortunately, for some users, there have been a decent share of bugs in the public release of Accordance 14. So far, I haven’t had any “mission critical” issues, only a few minor bugs I could either self-resolve or minor “annoyances” that I’ve reported as bugs. Others have had more issues than I’ve had though. Those who have seem to have been able to successfully downgrade to Accordance 13 and await some bug fixes for Accordance 14 before re-upgrading. So Accordance has learned a useful lesson. Announce the program at ETS/SBL and even show off a beta of it, but you don’t have to ship it by a deadline. Ship it when you know it’ll “just work”. I’ve provided some other feedback (and so have others) on how to make the Accordance 15 rollout a smoother experience. I’m still using Accordance as my primary Bible app, and I’m even buying a few books during the cyber sale. I’m still hanging in there and trusting Accordance 100%.

 

4. Since Accordance is a smaller company and not subject to the bureaucracy of a major corporation, I’m sure communications with developers will go quickly, and we’ll likely see major bugs resolved in Accordance 14 super-fast. There are still bugs with Logos I’ve reported years ago that haven’t been resolved. Accordance is nimble enough to rollout bug-fix updates on a fast schedule from what I’ve seen over the years as an Accordance user, and they’ve already rolled out one update to 14 shortly after it dropped.

 

5. I use both Accordance and Logos (I have over 13,000 books in Logos) and have for years. Neither app is going away from my toolbox. I’ve still pivoted to Accordance as my primary Bible app and Logos for stuff I can’t get in Accordance, since the grass isn’t 100% greener with Logos either. Logos 10 was (to me) an underwhelming release that for most people was overpriced (I got the upgrade cheap enough where I still went for it). They’ve also had multiple layoffs over the years (one recently), have recently scaled back their church offerings, and have had their own upgrade issues over the years (in the past, Logos upgrade releases would break their website completely, upgrade pricing would be incorrect, etc.), plus other issues (their Logos Now to Faithlife Connect subscription transition was a mess). The Wordsearch transition overall went smoothly for me, but not for others. Even then, I still did the Wordsearch to Accordance Crossgrade as a “just in case” scenario. So the bottom line is: Bible software companies have had their share of issues over the years. One thing we should all be doing is praying regularly for the employees of all Bible software developers that the Lord gives them the wisdom and strength to provide us the tools we need for Kingdom work. I’ll be spending this weekend praying heavily for the Accordance staff and their families and spend time thanking God for each one of them.

 

6. Apple’s architecture changes likely haven’t helped Accordance, but Accordance has seemed to handle them well. They were quicker than Logos getting an Apple Silicon version of Accordance ready, something Logos just recently accomplished. It’s not just processor changes though that Accordance has had to deal with. Apple has done numerous changes from Classic to Carbon to Cocoa to Swift, OpenGL/OpenCL to Metal, 32 Bit to 64 Bit, etc. Apple continues to throw another wrench in changes to their OS architecture, and it’s impressed me that Accordance has made it through them!

 

7. One thing I’ve noticed is the v14 collections haven’t dropped yet, which shows me that while Accordance might have publicly mentioned Accordance 14, they still haven’t fully released Accordance 14 to the masses until the v14 collections become available as a purchase option. One thing that Accordance users could do in the future is even if they pre-order Accordance, consider waiting to install the upgrade until they see the new version collections hit the Accordance Store. When we see those go live, we know Accordance is going all-in on 14 and encouraging new users to purchase it.

 

All of that to say, I trust Accordance, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m standing behind the Accordance team and praying for them. I wish the initial rollout of Accordance 14 could have gone a little smoother, but it didn’t. I know the team will step up to the plate and work overtime to make Accordance 14 exciting and pleasant (I almost said “great again”). I still love the upgrade overall and the new features, and so far, I can use it without any major pain. Hang in there, keep praying for the Accordance team, and it’s all going to work out for the good.

[Larry Wing]

@Nathan Parker Thanks for your post. I have to agree with you on all points except Logos. And Logos only because I don't use it enough to really have any opinions. Your comment about v14 collections is also helpful. While disappointed with v14 release I'm sitting back and waiting.

 

BTW. I remember you from WordSearch.

 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Yeah, I used Wordsearch for years as well and built up a large library through them (I did so when I was on a PC that couldn’t run Logos well). I still use Logos and still buy some books from them I can’t buy from Accordance. I’m certainly not anti-Logos. I wish both Logos and Accordance well in developing Bible software to further Kingdom work, and we need both major players in the Bible software industry. I’ve just found that in my effort to simplify my Bible study workflow, shifting to Accordance as my primary app and Logos for stuff I can’t get in Accordance works well. Accordance lets me focus on a quality set of Bible study tools without being overwhelmed in features and books, whereas Logos acts more as an extra seminary library I access on my machine. Accordance is also so speedy that when I need to quickly search the Bible, Accordance is what I’m going to whip out. I consider both of them tools in my toolbox, with Accordance being my main tool.

[Luckylou1980]

It would help if the company gives a video updating us with our concerns of the product . I’m sure due to the Thanksgiving holidays caused some delay in the responses.

[Lawrence]

@Luckylou1980 I'd like to share a different perspective on this.

 

With the volume of bugs and limited staff time during the Christmas season, I feel it's better for us if they spend their time focused on stablising the system than on making a video. Management might have made a mistake in releasing Accordance 14 before it was stable, and it is a bit of a mess right now, but we don't want to tempt them into making the same mistake by rushing to release an update just so they can report progress.

 

The Accordance 13 installer is available, so if our installation of Accordance 14 is non-functional, we can bridge this period by downgrading to Accordance 13 and restoring data from backups if needed. It's not ideal, but if Accordance 14 had not been released prematurely, we'd have had to wait this period out on Accordance 13 anyway.

[Luckylou1980]

I’m was talking about a Video regarding the bug problem filling us in on what is being done to fix and move forward 

[Robin Reeve]

On 11/25/2022 at 7:11 PM, Robin Reeve said:

I think I will attempt a deep uninstall from my Mac and reinstall the app from scratch.

Now, it doesn't even display a bibliography style choice in my preferences, etc.

Installing v. 14 created havoc, to the point that all my settings were changed and some blocked, even when installing v. 13 again.

Happily, I have a Windows laptop where I didn't install v. 14 - and it works fine (even though I prefer the Mac interface).

I cannot understand how v. 14 was launched with so blatant flaws. But whining won't change anything.

Hi all,
Good news: a deep uninstall and reinstall did the job.
I use a Mac computer at work, while I am more used to Windows, so it took me some time to figure out how to uninstall properly Accordance.

There actually remained a v. 14 lingering somewhere (Spotlight... spotted it), and the Apple online support had explanations about how to deep uninstall apps that are not on the Apple Store – which is the case for Accordance!
I also killed the v. 13 that I had reinstalled.

Then I installed v. 13 again.
All functions are now restored!
I will be clinging to v. 13 until I have news from the developers that v. 14 is free of all its bugs.
Perhaps the occasion for me to rejoice with what I have rather than complain about what I could obtain. 😉

Edited November 28, 2022 by Robin Reeve

[Kurt O]

Very surprised that no one from Accordance has communicated to the forum community.

[Bryan Sherwood]

4 hours ago, Kurt O said:

Very surprised that no one from Accordance has communicated to the forum community.

 

Same here.

[John Fidel]

Accordance's strong points have always been quality releases and great customer support and communication.  All are lacking currently.

 

I feel this release was ownership driven so there is not much that can be said except that they are working hard to fix the release. There were lots of things that were not considered in this release, and it left some customers in a difficult position with the update not being functional over a holiday weekend when there was no support. I hope they understand the severity of the decisions and fix things quickly. As they say it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and only a short time to lose it.

 

Rick would normally be the person to communicate on these forums and he is no longer with the company, at least based on the post that was removed.

[Lawrence]

6 hours ago, John Fidel said:

Accordance's strong points have always been quality releases and great customer support and communication.  All are lacking currently.

 

I feel this release was ownership driven so there is not much that can be said except that they are working hard to fix the release. There were lots of things that were not considered in this release, and it left some customers in a difficult position with the update not being functional over a holiday weekend when there was no support. I hope they understand the severity of the decisions and fix things quickly. As they say it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and only a short time to lose it.

 

Rick would normally be the person to communicate on these forums and he is no longer with the company, at least based on the post that was removed.

 

Rick Mansfield left?! I didn't see that coming.

[Teddy24]

11 minutes ago, Lawrence said:

 

Rick Mansfield left?! I didn't see that coming.

His last day is on the 30th from what I read on the forums 

[Kristin]

@Lawrence,

To my knowledge, he is still here, but gave his two week notice around the date of yesterday. My impression is that he was going to stay active on the forums, but @R. Mansfield can correct me if I am mistaken about any of this. I hope everything is ok.

[Lawrence]

Thanks @Kristin. Apparently his last day at Accordance is 30 Nov. I wonder why he left.

[Lawrence]

The technical issues don't seem insurmountable. I'm not an Accordance programmer, but the comments & experimentation suggest that the core functionality is in place, and tweaking just the initialisation can resolve many of the bugs. There may also have been some file-handling or file-format issues that need to be worked through.

 

But just looking in from the outside, Accordance 14 looks fixable.

 

Unless there are management or staff issues beyond the code, I reckon they'd be able to roll out a high-quality version of Accordance 14 by Christmas. The bug reports cluster around a few fairly well-defined issues, so a month to consolidate, prioritise, and hunt-fix-test should do the trick. If a couple of the new features prove stubbornly problematic, I wouldn't mind if they were postponed till Easter so we get a rock-solid version first.

 

The programmers will need space and support, but it looks achievable. Let's not write them off just yet.

[Gary Pauley]

I just hope they can pull things together. I've been with Accordance since the beginning of my ministry. I used to mail into the Gramcord project (snail mail!) for research assist before it became Accordance. More than Quickverse and Wordsearch I feel like Accordance has a unique place in the market. While I have Logos and use it...I regularly use Accordance as my daily source. My prayers are for them. And, consequently, for us. 

[Leopold Green]

with Rick going not long after Mark left I am really worried about what is going on here - is Linda the only person left of the 'Roy Brown' (golden) era of Accordance?

 

When I think of how much money I have tied into this programme and I realise I no longer know who Accordance are I feely very edgy indeed

 

I hope Accordance can (re) introduce themselves on this forum since the members of this forum represent the most active or engaged of their customers

[Tim Planche]

Still using Accordance 14 and it is working well. i like the new features. I am on an M2 MaxBookAir on OS 12.6.1 and do not use DropBox - but I have noticed relatively few bugs or crashes. Broadly it does what it says it will.

I can see others have had a different experience. But also wanted to give my ongoing experience of the release that on the whole has been pretty positive.