electronic Common Prayer 4+

I agree with a previous reviewer that this used to be my go-to source for all things prayer book. Along with the inexplicable demand for a subscription came a design change that made it harder to use. But chiefly I note with Odin that the so-called Anglican tradition in North America had multiple functional daily prayer apps available for free and the Roman Catholics have a LOT of breviary-based apps available for free. It’s frustrating (and embarrassing) that I can’t find one integrated (with daily RCL readings) Episcopalian daily prayer app that is free. Just shameful. I understand copyright law, but Church Publishing is not doing the right thing here.

This latest subscription based revision to the eCP is a pathetic example of a successor being eminently less usable than the original. The initial look and feel, while very different from the original, is usable and has some advantages. However, the usability is seriously lacking.

eCP used to be fluid to use and far superior to handling numerous bookmarks in multiple books. This version breaks all of that. I can still scroll easily down through a service (e.g. HE II) and there are hot links to the Collects, Lessons, Prayers of the People, Eucharistic Prayers, etc. But heaven forbid you actually follow one of those links because when you return (<-) you are thrown back out to the home page where you have to select the service once again and then scroll down to where you were. This gets even more convoluted if you should switch between portrait and landscape orientation as it appears that any intelligent navigation only works in landscape orientation.

Significant shortcomings of the original have not been addressed, and sorely lacking are page number references for key items that would be immensely valuable for individuals who are using eCP within a group who are mostly using hardcopy Prayer Books.

All in all, this woefully poor successor to the eminently fluid original eCP. I doubt that it is worth the annual subscription fee of $10.

It will take a little while to get used to the new app, but it probably will be as useful as the old once I’ve gotten used to the new menus— and could well turn out to be an improvement. (Still, “Content Update Available” (the top link) is a non intuitive name for a link to change font size on the iPad— important to folks like me with poor vision— though “Settings” (the bottom link) is fine.) There is a small learning curve, and during Holy Week, the readings have not always synced with what my congregations are doing. I’m going to assume that’s the congregations, not the app, and all will be well when we return to ordinary time.

It IS irritating to pay for what was once free, even if it’s only a small amount. Hopefully the charge will provide for updating and maintenance.