AndBible

The Road Ahead - Q4 2026 / Q1 2027

The Road Ahead - Q4 2026 / Q1 2027

Alongside the financial report for Q3/2026, here is the roadmap update for the next two quarters. It is shorter than usual, because the plan is simple: release the Compose version of AndBible to Android users, while already laying the groundwork for bringing the same shared codebase to iOS. That is plenty of work for these two quarters.

Looking back: Q3 in brief

The previous roadmap moved the shared Android/iOS codebase to the front of the queue, and that is where most of Q3 went.

  • The Compose port. In July I laid the multiplatform foundations (a shared Kotlin Multiplatform module, a multiplatform event bus and a Material 3 theme) and ported the screens to Compose, one at a time and checked against the classic screens. August went into many rounds of comparing old and new screens side by side on a real device and refining the interface. In September the work turned to architecture: a single navigation graph replacing separate Android activities, a restructured reading view and an app-wide Compose dialog system. The quarter ended with systematic, section-by-section verification on the emulator. The Compose version is now functional and nearly finished.
  • AndBible for iOS on the App Store. At the end of September the native iOS app left beta and is now available on the App Store. It is the work of Jared Murrell (Primetheus), and I am very grateful for it.
  • Support. Timmy Braun (timbze) has been helping with user support, which has been a real relief at a time when nearly all of my AndBible hours go into the port.

The plan

Q4 2026: Compose to Android users

  • Finish the remaining verification and fixes.
  • Release the Compose version with its refreshed Material 3 interface: first as a beta, then to production. This adds no new features, but many existing ones get UI/UX improvements along the way. A change of this scale deserves a round number, so it will most likely be AndBible 6.0.
  • In parallel, continue the groundwork for "one codebase, two platforms". I have already started the preparations and some of the actual implementation, and it proceeds on its own branch alongside the work of polishing the Compose release for Android users. Compose to Android users stays the top priority and the goal of Q4; the iOS work does not delay it.

Q1–Q2 2027: one codebase, two platforms

  • Building on the groundwork begun in Q4, finish bringing the shared codebase to iOS and publish a unified release, so that Android and iOS run the same app at full feature parity. It will replace the current native iOS app.
  • The release is done when it is ready, not by the calendar: the Q1–Q2 2027 timing is indicative, not a promise. The existing iOS app stays in maintenance mode (bug fixes only) until then, and existing iOS users' data will migrate automatically on first launch of the new app.

Technical choices for the shared codebase

The design work for the iOS side has settled several questions that were open in the previous roadmap:

  • Bible engine: a Kotlin Multiplatform port of JSword ("KSword"), not libsword. The same engine will run on Android and iOS. The deciding factor is that verse numbering, passage parsing, book names and the text pipeline must behave exactly as in the Android app, or bookmarks and synced data would point to the wrong verses. libsword covers only the module-storage layer. The port is checked against the current JSword running side by side as a reference. The conversion foundations are already in place.
  • Database: Room multiplatform with a bundled SQLite on both platforms. The Android side of this is already done (Room 3 with the bundled SQLite driver); moving the databases into shared code follows once the engine's reference and book model are shared.
  • Search: Lucene is replaced by SQLite FTS5. The search modes stay the same, but each Android user's search index will be rebuilt once, automatically, after the update.
  • Interface: Material 3 plus essential iOS conventions (edge-swipe back, safe areas, native share sheet and file picker), not a separate iOS-styled UI.
  • Bible view: one shared bibleview-js for both platforms.
  • Sync on iOS: Nextcloud and iCloud Drive in the first release. Google Drive on iOS may come later.
  • WebDAV synchronisation (#3837) will be built after the Compose release, so that it is written once, on the new codebase.

Later: the Knowledge Graph

The Bible Knowledge Graph & Taxonomy and the Strong's annotation pipeline described in the Q2/Q3 roadmap remain very much on my list. They will likely be taken up around Q2 2027, or whenever the unified iOS release is done. Building them on top of the shared codebase means their interfaces only need to be built once.

Contributions

What I wrote last time still holds: until the Compose version has been merged and released, larger pull requests are not something I can realistically take in, because the code underneath every screen is changing. Small, well-scoped fixes remain welcome. Once the Compose work is merged, I intend to return to feature development and to taking in pull requests again. The iOS groundwork will keep changing some things underneath, so for anything larger, please open an issue first so we can agree on the approach and the timing. Ideas and feature requests are as welcome as ever.

Sponsorship

Thank you to every sponsor who keeps this work going. As the Q3 financial report shows, the port has no budget of its own and has been funded mainly from the general development pool, as intended. That pool now ends the quarter empty, so there is no buffer going into Q4. My goal remains one full day per week for AndBible, roughly 90 hours a quarter. You can help through the webshop, by recurring sponsorship by bank transfer (get in touch for details), or with a donation via GitHub Sponsors.

God bless,
Tuomas Airaksinen
Lead developer, AndBible Open Source Project