It has been a while since getting a request here for the availability of a Bible in a specific language or on a specific mobile platform (I think the last one was Telugu for feature phones), but that’s just the thing that happened a week ago. A reader who had combed through the listings on our Bible Apps page didn’t find what they were looking for, and asked if we could help in finding (or lead to the development of) a Mien/Yao Bible.

Unfortunately, the two sites that the requester pointed us to in terms of resources (Site 1, Site 2) have some issues either with their content sources, or with the character encodings. This isn’t an unfamiliar issue when it comes to mobile-friendly biblical data sources.

The other issue that presents itself with this request the the platform choice. As we’ve talked about before, its not about the sales that you pay attention to when it comes to mobiles, but what it is that people have in their hands. The two largest owned mobile platforms (at least from a smartphone perspective) are Android and Symbian. Its for these two platforms that a Mien/Yao Bible is being asked for.

So here’s the request (and possibly the challenge): to those of you whom are developers looking to scratch and itch or sharpen your skills, the Mien/Yao audience need a Bible for Android and Symbian devices. Are you up for it? Or, if you are a content provider, and have already started making available content for the Mien/Yao audience, would you be willing to make it available offline and in the .SIS/.SISX and .APK formats for this audience?

Get in touch with us and we’ll help coordinate the efforts in making this happen.