The book Resurrection is Now, by Dom Aelred Watkin, has been the “sleeping hit” of the Daily Books feature in the Universalis apps. You, the readers, have been so enthusiastic in your response to it that there are now plans to re-publish the printed book. Limited stocks of the original edition have been discovered so that you can buy it now if you don’t want to wait. The remaining and rediscovered stocks of the first edition sold out within 24 hours of this blog post being published!
Posts Tagged ‘Universalis’
“Resurrection is Now”
Posted by universalis on 2 December 2021
Posted in e-books | Tagged: Daily Books, Universalis | 1 Comment »
“Journey into Light”
Posted by universalis on 2 December 2021
We are delighted to be able to announce that the recently published book Journey into Light, by Roderick Strange, is now available as a Daily Book in the Universalis apps.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Daily Books, Universalis | Comments Off on “Journey into Light”
Android Bug
Posted by universalis on 11 August 2016
The Kindle Fire has a bug which makes all pages in the Universalis and Catholic Calendar apps blank. (We have had just two reports of non-Kindle Fire devices being affected, but it is almost always the Kindle Fire).
The apps themselves continue to work normally in every other respect: for instance, the calendar listing is still visible, and you can switch from one page to another. It is just that the content of the pages themselves is blank.
The bug appears intermittently, on specific dates, the same date each year. It appeared in August 2013, and again in August 2014. Both times it went away after a few days. 11 August appears to be the peak day for bug reports.
We have conducted detailed research, thanks to one of the Fathers of the London Oratory who was experiencing the bug and able to lend us his Kindle Fire.
- Only early models are affected. Modern Kindle Fires aren’t.
- The bug is not in Universalis but in Android itself.
- The bug is triggered by viewing Morning Prayer for 11 August, the feast of St Clare.
- Once the bug has been triggered, the text of the page is never updated again.
How to get round it
- Move to an Hour other than Morning Prayer, or a date other than 11 August. You won’t see any change in the text yet, but the headings at the top of the screen will show the date and the hour.
- Close Universalis and shut down your device completely.
- Power up your device, and the problem will have gone away.
What we have done
In the latest releases of the Universalis and Catholic Calendar apps, released in September 2016, we have changed the way in which text is displayed. The main motive for doing this was to get more control of scrolling, and to lay the foundations for future plans (such as a page-turning mode as an alternative to the scrolling one). But the new display mode also avoids the defective component in Android, and the St Clare bug no longer occurs.
The new way of displaying text is turned on automatically, and you don’t have to do anything: just make sure you have the latest update of Universalis or Catholic Calendar.
Posted in Downloadable Universalis | Tagged: Android devices, Catholic Calendar, Kindle Fire, Universalis | Comments Off on Android Bug
Android Bug
Posted by universalis on 11 August 2015
The Kindle Fire has a bug which makes all pages in the Universalis and Catholic Calendar apps blank. (We have had just two reports of non-Kindle Fire devices being affected, but it is almost always the Kindle Fire).
The apps themselves continue to work normally in every other respect: for instance, the calendar listing is still visible, and you can switch from one page to another. It is just that the content of the pages themselves is blank.
The bug appears intermittently. It appeared in August 2013, and again in August 2014. Both times it went away after a few days. 11 August appears to be the peak day for bug reports.
The bug has appeared again in August 2015. Following previous experience, it should go away by itself in a few days.
Almost all Android devices are unaffected by this bug, and it seems likely that most Kindle Fires are also unaffected. We have no device at all with this problem.
There is nothing we can do until we do have an affected device at a time when it is affected. We have been offered the loan of such a device so if the bug persists for another day or so, we may be able to make progress.
What you can do
Nothing really, except wait. If the bug is triggered at the time the Universalis app starts, then you might occasionally try one of the following:
- Shut down the Universalis app and then restart it.
- Shut down the device completely and then power it up again.
Last year, one user reported that turning wi-fi off and on again cured the problem. This is obviously impossible – but it shows that there is something strange going on deep inside Android.
How you can help us
If you do get the problem, please try the following and let us know the result:
- Ask Universalis to display a page for 29 June 2015. Does text appear, or is the page blank?
- Leaving that page displayed, shut down your device completely and then power it up again and open Universalis. It will still be on 29 June 2015. Does text appear, or is the page blank?
Posted in Downloadable Universalis | Tagged: Android devices, Catholic Calendar, Kindle Fire, Universalis | Comments Off on Android Bug
Apple Watch: the Gospel on your wrist
Posted by universalis on 16 April 2015
Apple have accepted our Apple Watch apps, and they are in the App Store now!
Universalis
Universalis is approximately £10.49 / $13.99 / €13.99 from the App Store.
Catholic Calendar
Catholic Calendar is free. So there is no excuse not to have it – and you should tell all your watch-loving friends about it as well.
What the apps do
As far as the Apple Watch is concerned, both Universalis and Catholic Calendar behave in the same way. (The differences come in what the apps do on your iPhone or iPad).
Glances
There is a Glance to tell you what the feast or saint of the day is. Tap it to see the Gospel.
The app itself
When you open the app, you’ll see the calendar for the next few days. You can turn the crown to scroll through the list.
If you tap on a day, you will see the Gospel for the day. Use the crown to scroll through the whole text of the Gospel.
As well as the Gospel, you can see the First and Second Readings for the Mass of the day. To get these, press firmly on the Gospel screen, and a menu will pop up. Simply choose the reading you want.
All these pictures are for the bigger, 42mm Apple Watch. If you have the smaller, 38mm, model, then here is what you will see:
Posted in Downloadable Universalis | Tagged: Apple Watch, Catholic, Gospel, Prayer, Universalis | 1 Comment »
The Apple Watch
Posted by universalis on 28 February 2015
We have completed the development of our Apple Watch apps, and they work beautifully. As soon as Apple start accepting submissions to the App Store, we will submit these apps, and with any luck they will be available from the very first day of the Apple Watch – just as Universalis was on the very first day of the iPhone App Store.
These apps are not a separate product. They come as part of the Universalis and Catholic Calendar apps which are already in the App Store. If you haven’t got either app, Universalis is approximately £9.99 / $13.99 / €12.99 and Catholic Calendar is free. So you have no excuse not to try it out!
What the app does
When you open it, you see the calendar for the next few days. You can turn the crown to scroll through the list. (Universalis gives you yesterday, today and the week ahead; Catholic Calendar gives you yesterday, today and tomorrow).
If you tap on a day, you will see the Gospel for the day. Again, the crown will let you scroll through the whole text.
As well as the Gospel, you can see the First and Second Readings for the Mass of the day. To get these, press firmly on the Gospel screen, and a menu will pop up for you to choose the reading you want.
And that’s all.
All the pictures are for the bigger, 42mm Apple Watch. If you are getting the smaller, 38mm, model, then here is what you will see:
One more thing…
The Apple Watch has things called Glances. A Glance is a single screen of information. You can jump from one Glance to the next with a flick of your finger.
Our Apple Watch apps provide a Glance which tells you what the feast of the day is. Instant, and simple. And if you tap on the Glance, it opens the app.
Posted in Downloadable Universalis | Tagged: Apple Watch, Catholic, Gospel, Prayer, Universalis | 1 Comment »
Christmas presents from Universalis: e-books
Posted by universalis on 25 November 2014
Last year’s blog post explained how to give Universalis apps as presents to your friends. Now it is turn of e-books, for your friends with e-readers.
Giving the ability to make e-books
In general, you make a Universalis e-book by creating it for yourself. You buy a registration code, and either you use the Universalis program on Mac or Windows to make yourself an e-book or, for Kindle e-books only, you can use our web site to send an e-book directly to the Kindle. In either case, you need a Universalis registration code, which costs £19.99.
So as a once-and-for-all present to your friend, you can buy a registration code as a gift. To give a code as a gift, please buy it from us in the usual way. Forward the 9-digit code to your friend, and then, to avoid confusion in the future, send us an email to let us know that the code belongs not to you but to your friend (your friend’s name, address, and email would be helpful).
Pre-packaged e-books
We have built a few pre-packaged e-books, which make perfect Christmas gifts. They are:
- Liturgy of the Hours 2015 (High Seasons) – for England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This gives every Hour for every day from now until Pentecost 2015.
- Liturgy of the Hours 2015 (High Seasons) – for the United States.
- Liturgy of the Hours 2015 (High Seasons) – for Australia.
- Mass Readings 2015 – for England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This gives the readings at Mass for every day from Advent until the end of 2015.
The links shown above will take you to the relevant Kindle Store listing.
For the Kindle only, in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales only, there is an alternative, because we sell two pre-packaged e-books which make perfect Christmas gifts. There is the Liturgy of the Hours 2014 (High Seasons), which gives every Hour for every day from now until Pentecost 2014, and there is Mass Readings 2014, which gives the readings at Mass for every day from now until the end of 2014. Both of them cost £6.17 and you can view them on Amazon by clicking on their titles above.
The snag is that, except in the USA, Amazon don’t allow you to give e-books as gifts. They do, however, offer various kinds of gift cards, so you can give one of the right value and hint to your friend what you would like to him to buy with it. You might send him the links to the e-books, to help.
In the USA, you can give e-books as gifts.
Making e-books yourself
There is nothing, technically, to stop you making an e-book for (say) 2015 and giving it to your friend. But please note that you shouldn’t do this just like that, because when you bought your registration code it gave you the right to create e-books for your personal use only. It isn’t fair to us or to the copyright holders to go round the place pirating!
Here is what one of our customers has done. She has a friend who is an elderly priest, and she has set up his Kindle for him. In setting it up, she has noted the Kindle’s @kindle.com email address (every Kindle has one) and now, whenever it is time for a new e-book, she sits at home and sends the new e-book to that address by email, and Amazon deliver it wirelessly to her friend’s Kindle.
The procedure is the same as if she were creating Kindle e-books for herself (the instructions are here), but instead of saving the e-book to her Kindle she saves it to her desktop and then emails it from there. She makes one-year e-books, and sends them just before Christmas as a sort of extra Christmas card.
Being upright and decent, our customer has bought a registration code for her friend. We know about this because she asked us whether to switch registration codes from her own to her friend’s before creating his e-book and then back again to her own afterwards. I said no, no need at all: the aim was for the right number of licences to exist, corresponding to the number of users. Flipping the codes the whole time wouldn’t benefit anyone: it would just be pedantic.
Posted in e-books | Tagged: Christmas, kindle, Liturgy of the Hours, Universalis | Comments Off on Christmas presents from Universalis: e-books
Electric Prayer 