An Italian priest, Fr Paolo Padrini, has created the iBreviary application for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s an digital version of the Office of Readings, the Liturgy of the Hours, Holy Mass scripture readings and common prayers that you’d find in a breviary.
During iBreviary’s trial release this summer in Italy, iBreviary was downloaded ten thousand times. Now the application is available in Italiano, English, Español, Francais, Latin and the Rite Ambrosiano. Portugese and Deutsch will follow. It’s sold for 99 cents in Apple’s US iTunes store.
Thousands of pages of breviary text aren’t downloaded to an iPhone or iPod Touch; only the reading application which downloads -updates- the Office of Readings, Liturgy of the Hours and Holy Mass readings each day via a Wi-Fi connection to the internet. iBreviary provides Lauds, Daytime Prayer, Vespers and Compline.
If you download iBreviary to your iPod Touch or iPhone, and you don’t wish to read Italiano, the default setting, change the language in your device’s “Settings” panel. From the ‘home’ screen/main menu, press the ‘Settings’ icon, then ‘iBreviary’ then its preferences.
When you leave “Settings” then launch the iBreviary application, you’ll see Italiano, as before. Press the ‘circular arrow’ icon at the top left of your screen to upload today’s Breviary then Mass Readings then Prays in English. Switch between Breviary, Mass Readings and Prays by tapping their icons at the bottom of the screen.
Each day, when you start the iBreviary application, choose at the bottom of the screen ‘Breviary’ or ‘Mass Readings,’ then press the unlabeled circular arrow icon at the top to upload today’s data via a Wi-Fi connection to the Internet. You don’t need to refresh ‘Prays daily. When we reach the Easter Season, you may reload in order to replace the ‘Angelus’ prayer with ‘Regina Coeli.’
My apartment has a Wi-Fi router, so I can get updates each day then pray at the breakfast table, on a couch, in the garden and in bed at night with a little device, rather than try to navigate through thousands of pages of breviaries. What a help. iBreviary is the best 99 cents that I’ve spent lately!
